Explore Quotes on Dirt

Life is a hurricane, and we board up to save what we can and bow low to the earth to crouch in that small space above the dirt where the wind will not reach. We honor anniversaries of deaths by cleaning graves and sitting next to them before fires, sharing food with those who will not eat again. We raise children and tell them other things about who they can be and what they are worth: to us, everything. We love each other fiercely, while we live and after we die. We survive; we are savages.

I remember I was always enamored by and loved motorcycles as a kid. My grandfather had motorcycles and I remember going for a ride and then after that I was hooked. And then in first or second grade, I ganked or stole a book from the library just because it had a dirt bike with trails. It was one of those things where as a kid, the world is your oyster as far as what you can do, and you don't associate jobs and things with making money.

I've always known that the best part of writing occurs before you've picked up a pen. When a story exists only in your mind, its potential is infinite; it's only when you start pinning words to paper that it becomes less than perfect. You have to make your choices, set your limits. Start whittling away at the cosmos, and don't stop until you've narrowed it down to a single, ordinary speck of dirt. And in the end, what you've made is not nearly as glorious as what you've thrown away.

The soul that journey's to God, but doesn't shake off it's cares and quiet it's appetities, is like someone who drags a cart of dirt uphill.

Celebrity is a pretty stunning thing. At first I was like 'They love me! Oh, I love them, too.' And suddenly, I was tap-dancing on my pedestal and it was whack! Facedown in the dirt.

Before getting to my mother's house, I would always think of her on the porch or even on the street, sweeping. She had a light way of sweeping, as if removing the dirt were not as important as moving the broom over the ground. Her way of sweeping was symbolic; so airy, so fragile, with a broom she tried to sweep away all the horrors, all the loneliness, all the misery that had accompanied her all her life.

The way to maintain one's connection to the wild is to ask yourself what it is that you want. This is the sorting of the seed from the dirt. One of the most important discriminations we can make in this matter is the difference between things that beckon to us and things that call from our souls.

We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt.

It's easy to love the snow because at the end of every snowstorm it's as if the world has started over. There is no dirt, no footprints, just a layer of seamless, indiscriminate nature connecting everything to everything else. Isn't that the amazing thing about the natural world? You can tear it down, you can drill holes in it, you can ignore its power with all your might, but one morning you wake up and it has selflessly given despite all of our abuse. I think I'll make a snowman.

I am open to the accusation that I see compost as an end it itself. But we do grow some real red damn tomatoes such as you can't get in the stores. And potatoes, beans, lettuce, collards, onions, squash, cauliflower, eggplant, carrots, peppers. Dirt in you own backyard, producing things you eat. Makes you wonder.

The real lowdown on gardening is ... dirt.

The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for the ground comes back to a man after he has run the round of pleasure and business, eaten dirt, and sown wild oats, drifted about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love of digging in the ground (or of looking on while he pays another to dig) is as sure to come back to him, as he is sure, at last, to go under the ground, and stay there.

I love walking down the street and seeing faces and drama and happiness and sadness and dirt and cleanliness.

If you want to make something dirt cheap, make it out of dirt–preferably dirt that is locally sourced.

The New York book was a visual diary and it was also kind of personal newspaper. I wanted it to look like the news. I didn’t relate to European photography. It was too poetic and anecdotal for me… the kinetic quality of new york, the kids, dirt, madness—I tried to find a photographic style that would come close to it. So I would be grainy and contrasted and black. Id crop, blur, play with the negatives. I didn’t see clean technique being right for New York. I could imagine my pictures lying in the gutter like the New York Daily News.

I live in Los Angeles, which is the second most polluted city in the world, and I wake up in the morning to dirt all over my window.

The people who make the greatest wines in the world, they love their dirt, they pick it up, they coddle it, they kiss it, they put it in a jar and it sits on their mantle in the living room, because they know. They know.

The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.

My theory of characterization is basically this: Put some dirt on a hero, and put some sunshine on the villain, one brush stroke of beauty on the villain.

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

I'm very proud of my area around the plate. I don't want anyone messing with my dirt.