May 30, 2014

Thirteen Quotes that "Get" Music & Travel

I’m a lover of words, music, and travel; it’s the trifecta that led to this blog in the first place. I’m also constantly on the lookout for that perfect sentence someone else has already constructed, whether it’s a great lyric, a quote from a book, or even just a really ingenious tweet (major props if you can actually find the perfect words in 140 characters or less).

A few years ago I hit the road for an entire month of tour and needed to pack a notebook to write down addresses and expenses. I wanted something cheap that could get ruined in a trunk or on a wet sidewalk without being a big deal, so I skipped the ornate, overpriced Barnes and Noble travel journals and went straight for a replaceable 88 ¢ composition notebook at Wal-Mart with the intent to make it my own. With a little internet research, construction paper, and glue, I had the perfect unique travel journal for under $5. It’s cheesy and lame and covered in handwritten quotes about travel and music that I absolutely love.

So if you love music and travel like I do, here are 13 quotes where someone else already nailed that perfect description:

  1. “Half the fun of travel is the aesthetic of lostness.”
    –Ray Bradbury

  2. “I have found that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” 
    Mark Twain

  3. “Little by little, one travels far.”
    –J.R.R. Tolkien

  4. “Do you think I’ve gone ‘round the bend?”
    “I’m afraid so. You’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret—all the best people are.”
    Lewis Carroll, from Alice in Wonderland

  5. “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”
    –Benjamin Disraeli

  6. From The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien:

    The Road goes ever on and on
    Down from the door where it began
    Now far ahead the road has gone,
    And I must follow, if I can.
    Pursuing it with eager feet,
    Until it joins some larger way
    Where many paths and errands meet.
    And whither then? I cannot say.

  7. “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts, like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart.  Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene…a necessity for me—like food or water.”
    –Ray Charles

  8. “It’s not down on any map; true places never are.”
    –Herman Melville

  9. “Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here.”
    –Albus Dumbledore

  10. From “The Vagabond” by Robert Louis Stevenson:

    Give to me the life I love,
    Let the lave go by me,
    Give the jolly heaven above
    And the byway nigh me.
    Bed in the bush with stars to see,
    Bread I dip in the river—
    There’s the life of a man like me,
    There’s the life forever.

    Let the blow fall soon or late,
    Let what will be o’er me;
    Give the face of earth around
    And the road before me.
    Wealth I seek not, hope nor love
    Nor a friend to know me;
    All I seek, the heaven above
    And the road below me.

  11. From “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:

    I shall be telling this with a sigh,
    Somewhere ages and ages hence
    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.

  12. “The first music you really fall in love with is more than just music. It’s something that clicks in you beyond the song; it’s a message or image that causes you to jump in and not let go.”
    –Taylor Hanson


    And lastly, the unsourced tweet. I have no idea where it originated, but I couldn't leave it behind:


  13. A fan isn’t someone who has been there since the beginning; it’s someone who will be there until the end. 

3 comments:

Chrystina said...

This was a very cool roundup. Great find on a lot of these quotes.

Holly said...

Thanks, Chrystina! I love coming across a good line that sums up how you feel perfectly.

breakmydreams said...

Awesome :)
Is your journal filled up?
Can we see more of your journal?