Robyn Davidson Quotes

To be free one needs constant and unrelenting vigilance over one's weaknesses. A vigilance which requires a moral energy most of us are incapable of manufacturing. We relax back into the moulds of habit. They are secure, they bind us and keep us contained at the expense of freedom. To break the moulds, to be heedless of the seductions of security is an impossible struggle, but one of the few that count. To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble.

The two things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.

And there are new kinds of nomads, not people who are at home everywhere, but who are at home nowhere. I was one of them

The good Lord in his ultimate wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable: hope, jokes, and dogs, but the greatest of these was dogs.

I believe when you’re stuck in one spot for too long it’s best to throw a grenade where you stand, and jump…and pray.

When there is no one to remind you what society's rules are, and there is nothing to keep you linked to that society, you had better be prepared for some startling changes.

I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back.

By now I was utterly deprogrammed. I walked along naked usually, clothes being not only putrid but unnecessary. My skin had been baked a deep terra-cotta brown and was the constituency of harness leather. The sun no longer penetrated it. I retained my hat.

Real travel would be to see the world, for even an instant, with another's eyes

The most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the first decision.

I believe that the subconscious always knows what is best. It is our conditional, vastly overrated rational mind which screws everything up.

Some of us just don't want to be famous ... anonymity cannot be bought for any price, once you have lost it.

There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns—small intuitive flashes, when you know you have done something correct for a change, when you think you are on the right track. I watched a pale dawn streak the cliffs with Day-glo and realized this was one of them. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated confidence—and lasted about ten seconds.

Camel trips, as I suspected all along, and as I was about to have confirmed, do not being or end: they mere change form.

The 70s were a wonderful time to be young. I think most young people at that time were pushing the boundaries, asking all sorts of questions of society, of life and of themselves. They were very politicised. It was part of the air that we breathed.

I hate hats! Hats just give you really bad hair! I had a hat sometimes. Frankly, you get burnt so much anyway, it's beside the point. And when you're walking into the western sun, no hat in the world is going to save your face and neck from being sizzled.

It is better to proceed with one's duty in the service of others than wallow in the pain attachments bring

That odd idea that one person can go to a foreign part and in this rather odd voice describe it to the folks back home doesn't make much sense in the post-colonial world.

I just don't see myself as a travel writer. I can't. I don't.