28 Quotes by Nan Shepherd

Walking thus, hour after hour, the senses keyed, one walks the flesh transparent. But no metaphor, transparent, or light as air, is adequate. The body is not made negligible, but paramount. Flesh is not annihilated but fulfilled. One is not bodiless, but essential body.

Eye and foot acquire in rough walking a co-ordination that makes one distinctly aware of where the next step is to fall, even while watching sky and land.

Books work from the inside out. They are a private conversation happening somewhere in the soul.

In September dawns I hardly breathe – I am an image in a ball of glass. The world is suspended there, and I in it.

These tracks give to winter hill walking a distinctive pleasure. One is companioned, though not in time.

Gales brandished the half-denuded boughs and whirled the leaves in madcap companies about the roads. The whole world sounded. A roaring and a rustle and a creak was everywhere; and dust and dead leaves eddied in the gateways.

It is worth ascending unexiting heights if for nothing else than to see the big ones from nearer their own level.

Walking in mist tests not only individual self-discipline, but the best sort of interplay between persons.

Dried mud flats, sun-warmed, have a delicious touch, cushioned and smooth; so has long grass at morning, hot in the sun, but still cool and wet when the foot sinks into it, like food melting to a new flavour in the mouth. And a flower caught by the stalk between the toes is a small enchantment.