Southwest Quotes

“Rim

are there horizons
where there is no horizontal

where mountains fold space,
hold distance up?

embedded in a canyon
our heads tilt instinctively.

here earth meets sky,
we can reach it; the rim

does not shimmer and recede.

we lean into diagonal lives,
relieved of right angles

eyes, arms, hearts drawn
upward, vectored to ridgelines

keenly aware of the slant
of time, its shape and substance;

it is a wedge; it moves
along ray-stroked slopes;

we pass into it,
are passed over.”
― Laurelyn Whitt

“It is a spectacular illusion – a deeply three-dimensional scene flattened onto an earthly canvas.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip

“Big Bend National Park is intensely wild and extraordinarily beautiful – tucked away at the end of a couple of roads in southwest Texas.”
― Stefanie Payne, A Year in the National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip

“He had seen the same mixture of exhaustion and fight in Russell’s face. It was the poison of war spreading its sickness.”
― Jennifer Leeper, The Poison of War

“This is a hard country, brush country, mean country, heartbreak country. Ugly in summer, drought-stricken, dusty, glaring, but in winter it is hideous.”
― John Houghton Allen, Southwest

“One of the Pima warriors on seeing the fire-arms used by the white soldiers, thought that the next time he went over to the [Maricopa] Wells, he would take his war weapons along and show them to the white soldiers. So the next time he went, he took along his war-club and shield. The soldiers on seeing his weapons, laughed and made all sorts of remarks as to the effective use of such weapons. The joking went on until the Pima made a challenge to the white man. He said:
'You, white warrior
Take shooting iron.
Stand here ready.
I take war club and shield,
Step off ten paces,
Turn around, come back.
If you see any part of me,
Shoot!'
The White soldier stood there with gun in hand while the Pima walked away ten paces, turned around and came back hiding behind the shield so well that no part of his body could be seen. The white soldier did not shoot as the Pima came up to him. With the edge of his shield the Pima knocked the gun out of the soldier's hand. He lifted his war club as if he was about to use it. But the soldier took to his heels and ran into a nearby house, closing the door after him.
The people who saw this had a good laugh and no such challenge was ever made again.
Sometimes there would be shooting contests between Pimas and whites, Pimas with their bows and arrows and the whites with their firearms. They would place a target at different distances and see who could hit the bull's eye. The Pimas often won the match. They often won prizes of a pair of Army pants or a coat.
At other times, foot races were held at the Post. The Pimas always won the long distance races, but lost the short dashes.
[page 40, Early Days]”
― George Webb, A Pima Remembers

“In March 2020, the City of Tucson went into COVID-19 lockdown.”
― Steven Magee

“As Rachel ran with her 18-month-old son James Pratt, she was knocked down to the ground by a hoe, dragged by her hair, and separated from her child. She found herself taken to the area where her uncle Benjamin had been mutilated; arrows had been stuck in his body, and passing warriors thrust spears into it.”
― Noel Marie Fletcher, Captives of the Southwest

“One time, a 16-year-old member of Vicente’s group risked his safety trying to save a captive Texas girl, who had been seized by Comanches while taking clothes to wash at a stream near her house.”
― Noel Marie Fletcher, Captives of the Southwest

“She worked there for several months as a slave in a Mexican family until they sold her to a wealthy Hispanic man from Santa Fe, N.M. He also purchased another young captive Apache woman from New Mexico to accompany them. Both women were loaded onto an oxcart bound for Santa Fe in a journey that could take at least three months.”
― Noel Marie Fletcher, Captives of the Southwest

“A common thread that weaves the stories of all the captives together is race—one racial group attacking another. Many innocent people were simply trying to live their ordinary lives when another group decided it was justifiable to use violence to rob, beat, murder, kidnap, sometimes mutilate, and enslave others and their loved ones.”
― Noel Marie Fletcher, Captives of the Southwest

“Despite it all, there were heroes who rose above their circumstances. Those who reached out to people of another race with compassion and even love.”
― Noel Marie Fletcher, Captives of the Southwest

“Strangely it came to Gale then that he was glad. Yaqui had returned to his own — the great spaces, the desolation, the solitude — to the trails he had trodden when a child, trails haunted now by ghosts of his people, and ever by his gods. Gale realized that in the Yaqui he had known the spirit of the desert, that this spirit had claimed all which was wild and primitive in him.”
― Zane Grey, Desert Gold

“If we can skillfully create something out of nothing and emotionally touch readers, we have done our JOB as #writers and #authors ~ Jodi Lea Stewart”
― Jodi Lea Stewart

“No one knows much about this little man Se'ehe these days, but they used to say that he created the earth and everything on it. Nobody worshipped him. They only spoke of him having strange powers.
[page 103, Eagleman]”
― George Webb, A Pima Remembers

“The ruins of Chief Azul's house can still be seen to the right as your enter the town of Sacaton from the north--a two story structure with the roof fallen in. In front, across the road to the south is a monument which was put up in memory of the first Indian killed in World War One who was a Pima Indian from our tribe.
[page 51, Progress]”
― George Webb, A Pima Remembers

“I knew I had not worked at nuclear facilities, although I do have memories of visiting a nuclear research facility in the UK. Could I have been exposed to nuclear radiation? Perhaps. I was living in the southwest USA. The USA waged a nuclear war with nature in the southwest from July 16, 1945 onward.”
― Steven Magee

“There are no doubts that radioactive fallout has coated the entire world and the southwest USA has a high density of that radioactive coating. Whether you like it or not, some of that radioactivity is inside of your body! Every single human on the surface of the Earth has some level of man made radiation inside of them!”
― Steven Magee, Magee’s Disease

“Wise people do not fly budget airlines!”
― Steven Magee

“Greatest Nation On Earth...LOL!!!”
― Steven Magee

“Christmas 2022 revealed the hazards of flying budget airlines.”
― Steven Magee

“Southwest Airlines ruined Christmas 2022 for a million people.”
― Steven Magee

“If Southwest Airlines computers are not being fixed, what else is not being fixed?”
― Steven Magee

“When flying budget airlines, it is a good idea to buy the travel insurance!”
― Steven Magee

“Southwest Airlines canceled ten thousand flights during Christmas 2022!”
― Steven Magee

“It can take days to get rescheduled on a budget airline if they cancel your flight.”
― Steven Magee

“I have no faith in budget airlines.”
― Steven Magee

“New Mexico is home to the first atomic bomb exploded on USA soil.”
― Steven Magee

“She straightened. "Sorry. I didn't mean to chill you."
Chilling him was the last thing she was doing.”
― Dani Pettrey, One Wrong Move

“The height of the Chacoan culture lasted from A.D. 1055 to 1083, corresponding to the period of most intense building activity. This period also produced the most startling series of events in the heavens that have taken place within the Iast few thousand years. In July 1054 the supernova which produced the Crab Nebula blazed in the daytime skies for three weeks and remained visible at night for nearly two years. Some twelve years later, in 1066, Halley's Comet appeared, frightening Europeans on the eve of the Battle of Hastings. Another decade later, on March 7, 1076, a total solar eclipse was visible south of Chaco Canyon. In 1077 sunspots large enough to be seen with the naked eye were reported in China, beginning a more than two-hundred-year period of unusual sunspot activity. And again on July 11, 1097, another total eclipse passed over the Southwest. The inhabitants of Chaco Canyon may have been so startled and puzzled by these events that they became devoted sky watchers, investing much more effort in astronomy than they might have had the heavens been ordinary and unchanging.”
― J. McKim Malville, Prehistoric Astronomy in the Southwest