black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets – and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other.

Beryl Markham

There is silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not the same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, the silence of doubt.
BERYL MARKHAM

Different Emptiness Rainstorm Silence
A word grows to a thought – a thought to an idea – an idea to an act. The change is slow, and the Present is a sluggish traveler loafing in the path Tomorrow wants to take.
BERYL MARKHAM

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

Demand Parent Views
If your hunch proves a good one, you were inspired; if it proves bad, you are guilty of yielding to thoughtless impulse.
BERYL MARKHAM

Guilty Hunches Inspired
But, for a little while, this is the place for us — a good place too–a place of good omen, a place of beginning things–and of ending things I never thought would end.
BERYL MARKHAM

Ends Good Littles
You know then what you had always been told — that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks.
BERYL MARKHAM

Adding Clock Machine Street Told Tyrants
[The lion] began to contemplate me with a kind of quiet premeditation, like that of a slow-witted man fondling an unaccustomed thought.
BERYL MARKHAM

Kind Lions Men Unaccustomed
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

Again Born Civilization Country
What a child does not know and does not want to know of race and colour and class, he learns soon enough as he grows to see each man flipped inexorably into some predestined groove like a penny or a sovereign in a banker’s rack. Kibii, the Nandi boy, was my good friend.
BERYL MARKHAM

Boys Children Friends Good
Success feeds confidence.
BERYL MARKHAM

Confidence Feeds Success
I look at my yesterdays for months past, and find them as good a lot of yesterdays as anybody might want. I sit there in the firelight and see them all.
BERYL MARKHAM

Friend Good Responsibility Wall
A map says to you. Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not… I am the earth in the palm of your hand.
BERYL MARKHAM

Doubt Hands Maps
There is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a man, for pleasure or for work.
BERYL MARKHAM

Children Gay Lifeless Men
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

Age Fun Goldfish Translated
That’s what makes death so hard–unsatisfied curiosity
BERYL MARKHAM

Curiosity Hard Unsatisfied
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

This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets – and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other.

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This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets – and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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