Wilderness Quotes

“the tingling of ceased motion dancing over their skins.”
― Roger Zelazny, Wilderness

“Fire, brimstone, the apocalypse where Satan was pitched into his lake of fire to preside thereafter over crusty fumes, soul-jets of mud and blood, pus and piss.”
― Roger Zelazny, Wilderness

“Wheeling, hawkwinged, hawkwinding circuits darkskied, darkscrying blue incandescence of waters through drifting clouds’ veils, dark lines of mountains, clusters of forested green, strings, dots of rivering blue, hawkswinging high, hawkseye holding lights flapping over ice fields, crawl of darkthunder herds under clouds’ dust over furbelowed plain, circular rainbows, firetipped peak beyond ocean turning, darkened flyway of birdcalling formed to wedge and arrow the seasons, descending then, plumed plummet, out of equinoctial exuberance, downderrying, down, through vaporous wisps, heatshield blazing, hawk-call, huntcry, over Her eversighing mudstreaked Self, breasting broken ranges, dipping valleyed declivities under starshot blackspread sky, falling, falling now, amid pinnacles, buttes, talus, and scree, into caverndark opening, down, eyes of fire, walls paintpotted mineralbright, low, low, the weight of Earth heavy, so heavy it groans in the turning, landing, perching, jerkstepping, jackbirded, lowering, lowering beneath world’s weight, lengthening, widening, thickening, furred unto slow power, progressing, four-legged, down, ever down, derry, into.”
― Roger Zelazny, Wilderness

“Then the moon was overhead, all shadows hidden; then it hung to his right like a lantern beside some invisible wagon. Now his mind was all moon, even as he rested. Now the moon grew nearer the butte, transforming that still entity yet again; it now became the stump of a great tree, himself perhaps the upper body seek ing to reunite itself and stand. Crawling, he felt the desire for wholeness, for union with the shattered limb that hung useless.”
― Roger Zelazny, Wilderness

“Later, the moon came up and spilled a glow across the plain. The grasses and low shrubs were touched with silver. The contours of the butte were limned in greater detail. He adjusted his course slightly. He had shadows now for company; his own reached out a little before him, like his dark spirit drawing him onward. It amused him to feel that he could not die till he’d covered the space it had claimed, always just slightly ahead.”
― Roger Zelazny, Wilderness