Bicycling with Butterflies Quotes

“Trespassing laws bother me. The idea that I can't trespass on private land but private landowners can trespass into my space, by dirtying my air and contaminating my water, has always left me doubting the validity of such restrictions.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“Knowledge is the only sword that can cut through harm being done in ignorance.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“The male frogs called, attracting mates to lay eggs and begin another generation. Their calls seemed to be protests, an act of defiance. Even as the walls of development squeezed the life out of Texas, that life called to its doomed future, reminding anyone who would listen that it was their home, too. I listened. With a heavy heart, I wondered how anyone could call such destruction progress.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“Still, for self-preservation, I don’t cross fences or No Trespassing signs. Except when I do.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“a long trip is nothing more than a collection of miles. If I could bike one mile, then I could bike two. If I could bike two, then I could bike 10,000.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“Beautiful sights are made more beautiful by the challenge of getting there.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“It was the intimacy of that moment that struck me most, of being part of the less glamorous rituals of life. I took the opportunity to soak up the gift they had given me: the gift of ordinariness, a window through which to see their unguarded lives.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“A report by an Australian think tank ran the numbers: if nothing changes, human civilization as we know it today will likely collapse by 2050.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“If all of us committed to one footprint of land...the world would be a better place.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“When I was young, I would ride my bike until I was lost...the realization that I could get where I was going on my own, under my own power, unclocked a bigger world for me.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“Every day, I biked for the air, climate, frogs and butterflies, and every day, I was told in so many words that my convictions were crumbs easily swept to the margins.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“The (Milkweed) plants sat so vulnerable in ditches, the caterpillars never eating fast enough to keep the milkweed small and inconspicuous. It seemed inevitable that the plants would draw the attention of landowners who were oblivious to the architecture of life, and the monarch's habitat would succomb to mowing.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“We call government support to farmers "subsidies." Support for poor people is instead referred to as "welfare.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“Monarch Watch estimates that each day, 6,000 acres of Monarch breeding habitat in the United States are converted to something else.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“Scientists have linked this alarming decline in large part to habitat loss. Monarch Watch, the University of Kansas’s education, conservation, and research program, estimates that each day, 6000 acres of monarch breeding habitat in the United States are converted to something else: housing or commercial developments, farms, roads, and other human uses. Even farms, which once invited milkweed to thrive between crops and along farm edges, are changing tactics and destroying milkweed. The presence of milkweed in agricultural fields (between crops and on field edges) declined 97 percent from 1999 to 2009 in Iowa, and 94 percent in Illinois. Each year, the migrating monarchs have fewer places to feed on nectar and lay their eggs. They are losing their habitat, losing their homes. Eviction, extinction.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration

“Being stuck on one side of the river with no options reiterated what I already knew: society tells cyclists we’re not important, that we don’t deserve space. It wasn’t just the lack of options that infuriated me, it was a system that demanded compromise from non-conformists. For me, bicycling was more than transportation. It was my version of praying.”
― Sara Dykman, Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration