Celine Quotes

“No: Human beings, by orders of magnitude, remained the most vicious animal on the planet.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“Sometimes now I think just making it through a day is the point. Practically a triumph, don't you think? If you don't melt down or kill anyone or just give up? If you happen to be kind, or help someone else, or create something beautiful, well, you've really done something to crow about.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“There might not be a measure of happiness left in a life, but there could be beauty and grace and endless love.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“Happiness was not a word that seemed to apply anymore, when she had lost so many close to her. There was a contentment that felt deeper, that acknowledged and accepted the quieter offerings of small joys—of love and occasional peace in a life that was full of pain.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“One thing Pete had learned over the years as a participant in so many disparate cultures, and as a family historian, is that almost nothing that can be imagined is impossible, and that, in fact, most of those things, in one form or another, have occurred. Scary really.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“The most indisputable beauty may be the one that people cannot ever touch. That God exists up there somehow, in the peaks and remote lakes and the sharp wind.

Who knows why that picture stirs joy. It speaks directly to our impermanence and our smallness.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“She thought that one might not make a dent in the Great Sadness, but one could help make another person whole.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“A road trip frees the mind, revitalizes the spirit, and infuses the body with Dr Pepper and teriyaki jerky.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“One of the things that happens to people as they get older, and especially to women on the other side of middle age, is that people forget to notice.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“I’m not sure of anything,” she said. “Which is almost wonderful.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“It was the best time of the year. Frost at night and warm, sunny days, when the yellows and oranges of the aspen and cottonwoods did something to the blue of the sky behind them that an artist might never mimic.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“I think it’s a terrible invention. Nobody knows how to read a map anymore. You chase down a blue line but you have no idea where you are in the world. Like a rat in a maze. How do I ever know where I am in relation to Pikes Peak, or the South Platte? Or God?”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“I think he tried to live every day just so he wouldn’t die.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“our job as citizens, apparently, is the pursuit of happiness. Something I always have to gird myself for. I’d much rather just be happy, or not.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“Pursuing fun is exhausting. Having fun is just fun. Much more relaxing just to do your work, don't you think? I mean if you enjoy it.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“She must have been freezing, and it filled Pete with gratitude for the no-bullshit people of the earth, the people who knew what had to be done and would find their own damn coat later.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“Dusk was moving over the water with a stillness that turned half the world to glass. The wall of mountains had gone to shadow as had the reflections at their feet. In the stillness the rings of rising trout appeared like raindrops. Slowly, in silence, the dark water tilted away from the remaining daylight.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“Human beings, by orders of magnitude, remained the most vicious animal on the planet.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“To prove her point about the pursuit of fun, they had to wait for a table behind a group of road bikers who wore bike shoes that clumped and tight bike shorts that didn’t clump nearly enough. According to Celine. “You will never ever be truly happy if you wear those shorts,” she said. “You are telling your manhood that you wish he were an internal organ.” One of the men overheard her and began to laugh, and insisted that the two of them slide in front of the group in line.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“Jackson Hole was pleasant. Nothing more. Celine pointed out that an entire town bent on leisure and fun was very tiring. “I take that back,” she said as they strolled across to the Cowboy Bar for lunch. “Pursuing fun is exhausting. Having fun is just fun. Much more relaxing just to do your work, don’t you think? I mean if you enjoy it.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“We have all seen the posters and prints of the bends of the Snake River curling beneath the sharp granite towers of the Grand Tetons. The water is black and the peaks are dusted with new snow and the cottonwoods along the banks are yellow, their smoldering ranks throwing the scale of the mountains into perspective, because the tall trees look tiny running along the bottom of the picture. It may be morning and the river is covered in mist that moves over the water like smoke, and there may be one man fishing, his fly rod bent back mid-cast. If he is there, it is only to remind us that the grandeur and shocking beauty are not of human scale. That the most indisputable beauty may be the one that people cannot ever touch. That God exists up there somehow, in the peaks and remote lakes and the sharp wind.

Who know why that picture stirs joy. It speaks directly to our impermanence and our smallness.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“It was that time of day, or night, that happens only a few weeks a year at a certain hour in certain parts of the American West. The sun sets behind mountains but the cloudless sky that is more than cloudless, it is lens clear – clear as the clearest water - holds the light entirely, holds it in a bowl of pale blue as if reluctant to let it go. The light refines the edges of the ridges to something honed and the muted colors of the pines on the slopes, the sage-roughened fields, the houses in the valley – the colors pulse with the pleasure of release, as if they know that within the hour they too will rest.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“It's very hard to be a boy, " Celine commented dryly. "You're never sure whether to love something or kill it.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“It was that time of day, or night, that happens only a few weeks a year at a certain hour in certain parts of the American West. The sun sets behind mountains but the cloudless sky that is more than cloudless, it is lens clear -clear as the clearest water - holds the light entirely, holds it in a pale blue as if reluctant to let it go. The light refines the edges of the ridges to something honed, and the muted colors of the pines on the slopes, the sage-roughened fields, the houses in the valley - the colors pulse with the pleasure of release, as if they know that within the hour they too will rest.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“And in each loss was some further exile. Celine wondered just then what the word "home" must mean to her. Probably a space within the relative safety of her own skin.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“In truth, Celine never went too long without eating. HALT. It was her AA training. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired - don't let yourself become any of those, if you can help it.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“road trip frees the mind, revitalizes the spirit, and infuses the body with Dr Pepper and teriyaki jerky.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“She had taught him almost everything he knew about moving through the world with some semblance of grace, and he tried to live it and bumbled often and tried again. She had taught him courage in the landscapes of the imagination, and to find the joy in things when he was afraid.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“Chicksaw seemed to be pieced together like his shack, which was growing on her. The place looked haphazard, but on closer inspection everything seemed to have a function. ... The same for the man: If he'd been a quilt it would look at first glance very primitive, even crazy in its pattern. But study it a little closer and one might see some fine stitching and some very curious patches.”
― Peter Heller, Celine

“He felt wreathed in the music of language, and as long as he heard it and could write it down, as long as the pulse was in his veins, he didn't care if he lived out of the back of a truck or in some crappy rent-by-the-week for the rest of his life.”
― Peter Heller, Celine