Silence is never so impenetrable as when the whisper of steel on paper strives to pierce it.

Success breeds confidence.

One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day that will be an airborne life.

BERYL MARKHAM

Curves

I learned to watch, to put my trust in other hands than mine. And I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know — that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it.

BERYL MARKHAM

Dreaming Learn Mine Wander

At least David and Goliath were of the same species, but, to an elephant, a man can only be a midge with a deathly sting.

BERYL MARKHAM

Deathly Elephant Sting

When you have flown halfway across a desert, you experience the desperation of a sleepless man waiting for dawn which only comes when the importance of its coming is lost.

BERYL MARKHAM

Coming Desperation

She has a derelict quality in her character; she toys with freedom and hints at liberation, but yields her own desires gently.

BERYL MARKHAM

Gently Liberation

It is not fickle, but because it has mothered not only men, but races, and cradles not only cities, but civilizations – and seen them die, and seen new ones born again – Africa can be dispassionate, indifferent, warm, or cynical, replete with the weariness of too much wisdom.

BERYL MARKHAM

Memory is a drug. Memory can hold you against your strength and against your will.

BERYL MARKHAM

I have a trunk containing continents.

BERYL MARKHAM

Containing Continents Trunks

It is just one of those preposterous things that men do like putting a dam across a great river, one tenth of whose volume could engulf the whole of mankind without disturbing the domestic life of a single catfish.

BERYL MARKHAM

Across Disturbing Making Putting Volume

Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change, but it is a land of moods and its moods are numberless.

BERYL MARKHAM

Moods Race Return

In view of this and other things, I demand forgiveness for being so obviously impressed with my own parents.

BERYL MARKHAM

Parent Views

To me, desert has the quality of darkness; none of the shapes you see in it are real or permanent. Like night, the desert is boundless, comfortless, and infinite. Like night, it intrigues the mind and leads it to futility.

BERYL MARKHAM

Real

There’s an old adage,” he said, “translated from the ancient Coptic, that contains all the wisdom of the ages — “Life is life and fun is fun, but it’s all so quiet when the goldfish die.

BERYL MARKHAM

Goldfish Translated

A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.

BERYL MARKHAM

A life has to move or it stagnates. Even this life, I think. Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.

BERYL MARKHAM

Moving Yesterday

But the soul of Africa, its integrity, the slow inexorable pulse of its life, is its own and of such singular rhythm that no outsider, unless steeped from childhood in its endless.

BERYL MARKHAM

Knowing Nothing

Silence is never so impenetrable as when the whisper of steel on paper strives to pierce it.

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