Just Write

Bamiyan, Afghanistan

Without words, without writing and without books
there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.
- Hermann Hesse

Baluchistan, Pakistan

Writing  is one of the grand, free human activities.
-  Thomas E. Cronin

Yemen

Writing is both mask and unveiling.
- E.B. White

Mali

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
- William Wordsworth

Kegalla, Sri Lanka

 Burma

Writing is thinking on paper.
- William Zinsser

 Kabul, Afghanistan

The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite…
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honduras

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.
- Jules Renard, Journal, 10 April 1895

India

Like most—maybe all— writers, I learned to write by writing and,
by example, by reading books.
- Francine Prose

Bruce Duffy, writer and author, working on an article for Life Magazine, Afghanistan

The pen is mightier than the sword.
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Dith Pran, survivor of Cambodia’s killing fields, photojournalist, and author of
Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors

Paul Theroux, writer and novelist, Costa Rica

Words so innocent and powerless as they are,
as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil
they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Paraguay

Creative writing begins with creative thinking
- K. Earle

Colombia

Afghanistan

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.
- Vita Sackville-West

Thailand

Writing left by visitors to a pilgrimage site in Burma

Peru

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought,
this in turn makes us think more deeply about life … 
- Norbet Platt

Young Sikh boys in classroom, Afghanistan

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the
difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
- Mark Twain

The World’s Ride

The bicycle is the noblest invention of mankind.
- William Saroyan

India

It would not be at all strange if history came to the conclusion that the
perfection of the bicycle was the greatest event of the nineteenth century.

Afghanistan

Tahiti

Cambodia

Bangladesh

 The first real grip I ever got on things
Was when I learned the art of pedaling
- Seamus Heaney

West Bengal, India 

China

Cambodia

Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human race.
- H.G. Wells

Afghanistan

A bicycle does get you there and more… And there is always the thin edge of danger to
keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs
again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal.
And getting there is all the fun.
- Bill Emerson, On Bicycling, Saturday Evening Post, 1967

Morocco

The Bicycle
Haiku
Wheels  carry me from
Youth to middle to old age
Never complaining
- K. Earle

Cambodia

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of riding a bike.
- John F. Kennedy

Lebanon

Kabul, Afghanistan

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man.
Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish.
Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.
- Iris Murdoch

India

Afghanistan

I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is
nothing wrong with enjoying one’s self simply, like a boy.
- Leo Tolstoy, Responding to criticism for learning to ride a bicycle at age 67

Oldest West African mud mosque, Djenne, Mali

Longmen Caves, Henan Province, Louyang, China

India

India

Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving.
- Albert Einstein

Kesennuma, Japan

France

Cambodia

I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world,
upon whose spinning wheel we must all learn to ride, or fall into the sluiceways of
oblivion and despair. That which made me succeed with the bicycle was precisely
what had gained me a measure of success in life —
it was the hardihood of spirit that led me to begin, the persistence of will that held me to my task,
and the patience that was willing to begin again when the last stroke had failed.
- Frances E. Willard

China        

We would love to hear from you.
What themes and/or topics would you like to see in future posts?