Spell of the Tiger Quotes

“But what is the real color of leaves? As a child I was once told that our blood is really blue, like the blue veins of our wrists; we only think blood is red because it turns color during a chemical reaction with the air. At the time I wondered how to test if this were true; I could think of no way to examine blood without exposing it to air. Unless blood is exposed to air, I thought then, we can't see it at all.
Perhaps this is what happens to the birds here: perhaps it is the act of joining the air that calls forth their colors; perhaps the rest of the time the birds are really all green, and the leaves, though disguised by chlorophyll, are really the color of plumage.”
― Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

“Dreaming and waking, on land and on water, I wandered, lost, in a landscape peopled with gods and animals unseen, a character in a story told in a language I could not understand.”
― Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

“I get them—especially Girindra’s, since he mails them from Jamespur—their words are usually six to eight weeks old. While I read their words, I can’t even know for sure that the writers are still alive.”
― Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

“There he found his two youngest daughters unconscious. Wet, cold, and mesmerized with terror, the other members of the family had forgotten about the two girls and were actually sitting on them—they had nearly suffocated.”
― Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

“Some villagers understand science simply as a different system of belief. “If you did not believe in science, how would you fly in an airplane?” one elderly fisherman asked me thoughtfully. “Without belief in science, the airplane would fall down.”
― Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

“But no guard would accompany us; because of public anger over the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya, a national strike day had been declared, and no one was working.”
― Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

“Who is God? Moses asked the burning bush, and God himself replied. Older texts report Yahweh’s answer as “I am who I am.”
― Sy Montgomery, Spell of the Tiger: The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans