I don't see the desert as barren at all; I see it as full and ripe. It doesn't need to be flattered with rain. It certainly needs rain, but it does with what it has, and creates amazing beauty.
Water is the true wealth in a dry land.
You know that Moses was spinning like crazy in Exodus XIV through XVII when the Jewish people wanted to go back and become a place again because tramping through the desert was a bit too hard.
For instance, take this sample: he has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights, the one ecstasy that stands first and foremost in the heart of every individual of his race - and of ours - sexual intercourse!It is as if a lost and perishing person in a roasting desert should be told by a rescuer he might choose and have all longed-for things but one, and he should elect to leave out water!
This desert town was man's own miracle of pure purposelessness.
We were in the Arabian Desert for nine months. And I was having the time of my life. It could have been an archeological expedition, a military expedition.
Peter O'Toole - I really loved that man. They sent me into the desert, and I lived there with him for 100 days. And there were no women! Can you believe it?
If you can survive in the desert, you survive anywhere. I know more than anything life in desert. You can tell by looking at the dirt how long ago it rained, how hard it rained, how much water came through. You can by looking at a plant, a tree, from an animal's look. I can read the desert like I read my hand.
Both camels are dead and our provisions are done.
The sin of the desert is knowing where the water is and not sharing it.
Omar Sharif and I spent nine months in the desert, day after day for nine months.
In the United States, there is a restaurant called The Outback Steakhouse, and I could survive in there for several weeks at least, sustaining myself on bloomin' onions and, I'm sure, their legitimate and very Australian cuisine. In the real Outback? I give myself about 14 minutes.
Wherever we halted we were surrounded by wandering troops of Bedouins.
I should never stand alone in this desert world, but that manna would drop from heaven, if I would but rise with every rising sun to gather it.
Why do I live in the desert? Because the desert is the *locus Dei*.
If I want to walk out in the desert and heat up a can of beans on a fire, I still can. In those movies like Gattaca or whatever, the space age stuff is always all there is. But in the world there is never just one way of living. It's more like a big junkyard. Put it this way: I'm not afraid I'm going to end up on a space station in aluminium-foil underwear.
That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
The first 600 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, before you get into the Sierra Nevada mountain range, is heavy on desert. One of the things I carry with me in the desert is an umbrella. People think that's insane. It has a shiny top to it, so it looks totally ridiculous, but the difference can be 20 degrees.
You can't fight the desert... you have to ride with it.
On the one hand, I want to go off and live in the desert with my dog and sculpt things out of adobe.
In the wilderness, God's covenant people struggled with a choice between feeding their bellies and nourishing their souls. God provided manna-a breadlike food that fell to the ground during the night-to sustain the wandering Israelites and to teach them how to value His Word more than physical fulfillment.
Desert, in generally, is a very good place to find yourself. Or lose yourself.
I slept in black tents, blue tents, skin tents, yurts of felt and windbreaks of thorns. One night, caught in a sandstorm in the Western Sahara, I understood Muhammed's dictum, 'A journey is a fragment of Hell.'
In the desert you celebrate nothing but water.
I would go out into the desert. The desert was my teacher. I didn't know about gurus and wise people-I wasn't a reader.
