269 Quotes by Ruskin Bond

Little one, don’t be afraid of this big river. Be safe in these warm arms for ever. Grow tall, my child, be wise and strong. But do not take from any man his song. Little one, don’t be afraid of this dark night. Walk boldly as you see the truth and light. Love well, my child, laugh all day long, But do not take from any man his song. 16.

The deodar enjoys the company of its own kind: Where one deodar grows, there will be others. A walk in a deodar forest is awe-inspiring – surrounded on all sides by these great sentinels of the mountains, you feel as though the trees themselves are on the march.

I don’t want to rot like mangoes at the end of the season, or burnout like the sun at the and of the day. I cannot live like the gardener, the cook and water-carrier, doing the same task everyday of my life... I want to be either somebody or nobody. I don’t want to be anybody.

And when the rains were over and it was October and the birds were in song again, I could lie in the sun on sweet-smelling grass and gaze up through a pattern of oak leaves into a blind-blue heaven. And I would thank my God for leaves and grass and the smell of things, the smell of mint and myrtle and bruised clover, and the touch of things, the touch of grass and air and sky, the touch of the sky’s blueness.

There is a distinction to be made between aloneness and loneliness.

Readers want more of the same from you. So stick to one genre.

You do not retreat from a road-block; you make your way around it, or look for another route to where you are going. And you learn to zigzag... Take a different route, albeit a longer one.

Money often costs too much.’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I was never afraid of the dark, and till today I see the night as a friend, giving me the privacy that I find so hard to find by day. Starlight, moonlight, early dawn, all have a special loveliness about them.