The UnPeopled Season Quotes

“I walked slowly to enjoy this freedom, and when I came out of the mountains, I saw the sky over the prairie, and I thought that if heaven was real, I hoped it was a place I never had to go, for this earth was greater than any paradise.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“It occurred to me that no words by the tongue of man can express the simplicities of a quiet land, so I returned to the river.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“I watched the surrounding landscape with great curiosity, and I wanted to discover the words that could describe all its unspoiled beauty.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“Today I am an unemployed writer living as a recluse in the great Northwoods.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“...returning to nature has been a dream present in the minds of every generation since mankind first left nature.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“The contemplative man always lives alone. Regardless of who may reside in his home, his is a solitary world.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“The contemplative man always lives alone, regardless of who may reside in his home, his is a solitary world.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“I was disoriented by the idea that men should ever leave the forest.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“When I returned to camp, they walked behind me on the trail, and we spoke not a word about getting skunked today, but rather talked about the days we returned with a stringer full of fish, and how we filleted them and the left the guts out for bears and eagles, and how those fish tasted fresh when we fried them over a fire.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“If happiness required me to ignore my thoughts and questions, then I hoped to never be happy.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“The trout is still with me, as are my memories. The future is somewhere between these two forces, but it lives in mystery. The river records to trail behind or before me, and covers everything as it flows. This mountain and this river are old, yet as I wade alone, they both appear young and new to me.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“I often wonder what happened to those few I spent my youth in battle beside, those select individuals whom I was drawn to simply by coincidence, whom I joined forces with against an unknown future and a world so large that we depended upon each other because none of us knew a damn thing, and we were all so wise.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“We smoked fat cigars by the campfire and they tasted like wood and ash. The inhale and exhale was exciting. Blowing smoke rings in the calm forest air was followed by a deep swallow of cheap beer, and this too was exciting. There was no judgment in the wild, and so indulgences were plentiful. There were no regulators here and we were free to indulge in the deep intoxications that made our minds free.”
― Daniel J. Rice, The UnPeopled Season: Journal from a North Country Wilderness

“Can you imagine a scenario, given our present circumstances, in which human life will actually survive and be here in a thousand years?”
― Daniel J. Rice, THE UNPEOPLED SEASON: Journal From a North Country Wilderness