Himalayas Quotes

“Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.”
― Jeffrey Rasley, Bringing Progress to Paradise: What I Got from Giving to a Mountain Village in Nepal

“Towards four o'clock the dew fell, and she smelled a gust of sweetness from the roses and a paleness showed in the sky to the East. It was cold; the wetness was cold on her hands and she felt her skirt dragging around her ankles... the light spread, there were long lines of cloud in the sky and presently above them the outline of the snow peaks appeared, cold and hard as if they were made of iron; they turned from black to grey to white while the hills were still in darkness.
Then the forest came, mysteriously out of the darkness, and the light moved down, turning the trees dark blue and green, and the terrace was full of a swimming light that was colourless and confusing... Then she looked up and saw that the Himalayas were showing in their full range, and were coloured in ash and orange and precious Chinese pink, deeper in the east, paler in the west.
The people called it 'the flowering of the snows”
― Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus

“The land north of Gangadwar is known to the wise as Paradise Ground. Apart from this land, the rest is called Earth elsewhere.”
― Kedarkhand Skanda Purana

“There was no one to whom he could explain that in order to survive he needed to be at altitude, a Himalayan altitude, so he might breathe.”
― Anita Desai, The Artist of Disappearance

“If Ganges is the mother, Himalayas is the father. One nurtures and nourishes, the other provides and protects.”
― Vinita Kinra

“It was as if the curtains came down on all this, if not entirely obliterated it, when the monsoon rose up in the thunderous clouds from the parched valley below to engulf the hills, invade them with the opaque mist in which a pine tree or a mountain top appeared only intermittently, and then unleashed a downpour that brought Ravi's rambling to a halt and confined him to the house for days at a time, deafened by the rain drumming on the rooftop and cascading down the gutters and through the spouts to rush downhill in torrents.”
― Anita Desai, The Artist of Disappearance

“It is the mountain that has been calling me, and it’s time to answer.”
― Susan Jagannath, Chasing Himalayan Dreams

“The Himalayas are a holy land, dotted with sacred lakes, divine peaks and blue glaciers that gleam and soar in the collective imagination of the sub-continent”
― Susan Jagannath, Chasing Himalayan Dreams

“red-trunked rhododendron trees looked like so many writhing russet snakes. In some places the forest floor was carpeted crimson with fallen rhododendron petals.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Chasing the Tiger

“Tourists who come to Nepal look at terraced fields and see their beauty but remain blind to the hard labour they extract from tillers.”
― Manjushree Thapa, Forget Kathmandu

“After Guru Rinpoche subdued Tseringma, he pursued her four younger sisters. One by one, they repented and became Buddhist deities, moving to mountains of their own. Miyolangsangma patrols the summit of Everest on the back of a tigress. Now the goddess of prosperity, her face shines like 24-carat gold. Thingi Shalsangma, her body a pale shade of blue, became the goddess of healing after galloping on a zebra to the top of Shishapangma, a 26,289-foot peak in Tibet. Chopi Drinsangma, with a face in perpetual blush, became the goddess of attraction. She chose a deer instead of a zebra and settled on Kanchenjunga, a 28,169-foot peak in Nepal.

The final sister—Takar Dolsangma, the youngest, with a green face—was a hard case. She mounted a turquoise dragon and fled northward to the land of three borders. In the modern Rolwaling folklore, this is Pakistan. Guru Rinpoche chased after her and eventually cornered her on a glacier called the Chogo Lungma. Takar Dolsangma appeared remorseful and, spurring her dragon, ascended K2, accepting a new position as the goddess of security. Although Guru Rinpoche never doubted her sincerity, maybe he should have: Takar Dolsangma, it seems, still enjoys the taste of human flesh.”
― Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan, Buried in the Sky: The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day

“Technology hasn't got all the answers, and sometimes - just sometimes - what is needed is spirituality, time and some good mountain air.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, A Glimpse of Eternal Snows: A Journey of Love and Loss in the Himalayas

“I move around hungry, sniffing the moonlight, drifting around the hills, hunting for you, your hot passionate kisses, like a cougar prowling in the Himalayas.”
― Avijeet Das

“I want to gaze at the Five Treasures of Snows; Kanchenjunga, that rears up like a frozen wave of ice.”
― Susan Jagannath, Chasing Himalayan Dreams

“We warily sipped ‘fresh’ buffalo milk in a Krishna temple. We travelled into the Himalayas until, at a height of two kilometres above sea level where we found ourselves surrounded by men as hard and tough as the mountains that bred them. We negotiated a price of 100 rupees for one of these men to carry our two heaviest bags the 15-minute walk to the hotel with nothing more than rope and a forehead strap. I paid him 300 rupees and his face lit up! We watched the morning mist clear to reveal views of the green Doon Valley and the distant white-capped Himalayan peaks. We rode an elephant up to the Amber Fort of Jaipur, and the next day we painted, washed and fed unpeeled bananas to another elephant, marvelling at her gentle nature as we placed the bananas on her huge bubble-gum coloured tongue.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“Fear of tragedy must be replaced by a thirst for victory.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Success doesn’t just happen;
it doesn’t pot out on its own.
Success is all about
the choices you make.
It’s a balancing act between
what to choose and what not to.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“I stepped somewhat apprehensively into 2020, unaware of what was to happen, of course, thinking little about the newly-emerged coronavirus, but knowing myself to be at a tipping point in my life. I had come so very far over the years, the decades, from my birthplace in the United Kingdom, to Thailand, Japan and then back to Thailand to arrive at an age—how had I clocked up so many turns under the sun?—at which most people ask for nothing more than comfort, security and love, or at least loving kindness.

Instead, I was slowly extricating myself, physically and emotionally, from a marriage that had, over the course of more than a decade, slowly, almost imperceptibly, deteriorated from complacency to conflict, from apathy to antagonism, from diversity to divergence as our respective outlooks on life first shifted and then conflicted. Instrumental in exacerbating this had been my decision to travel as and where I could after witnessing my mother’s devastating and terminal descent into dementia. For reasons which even now I cannot recall with any accuracy, the first destination for this reborn, more daring me was Tibet, thus initiating a new love affair, this time with the culture and majesty of the Himalayan swathe, and the awakening within me of a quest for the spiritual. I had, over the years, been a teacher, a lecturer, a consultant and an advisor, but I now wanted to inspire and release my verbal and photographic creativity, to capture the places I visited and the experiences I had in words and images—and if possible to have the wherewithal of sharing them with like-minded people.”
― Louisa Kamal, A Rainbow of Chaos: A Year of Love & Lockdown in Nepal

“Snow always makes me think of ice-cream. Glaciers look like where it’s dribbled.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Himalayan Kidnap

“Huge up-draughts – invisible forces – tossed our little plane like it was an insect.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Himalayan Kidnap

“When we reached the prayer flags and a pile of rocks that marked the highest point on the pass, the view was brilliant. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. To the south we could see rolling foothills: the gentle ups and downs that we’d walked through. Some of the hillsides were red or purple with rhododendron blossoms. To the west and east there was a muddle of ridges and spurs. To the north, there were several mighty snow-capped himals. The real Himalayan giants were mostly east of where we stood. We were a very long way from anywhere. We were a very long way from help.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Chasing the Tiger

“Phía Đông của cao nguyên Tây Tạng là chỗ xuất phát của nhiều con sông lớn nữa, trong đó có Hoàng Hà, Trường Giang và Cửu Long. Hoàng Hà và Trường Giang là hai con sông trọng yếu nhất của Trung Quốc, dòng chảy của chúng là quê hương của một nền văn hóa thâm hậu nhất của loài người mà về sau tôi sẽ đi thăm. Còn Cửu Long là nguồn sống của nhiều nước Đông Nam Á, trong đó có Việt Nam. Nếu lấy cao nguyên Tây Tạng làm tâm điểm, vẽ một vòng tròn bán kính chưa đến ngàn cây số thì vòng tròn đó bao gồm tất cả nguồn cội của những con sông nói ở trên. Chỉ điều đó thôi đã gây cho tôi một lòng kính sợ đối với cao nguyên Tây Tạng, "nóc nhà của thế giới". Đúng, không phải là sự ngẫu nhiên khi ánh sáng của minh triết loài người xuất phát từ vùng đất lạ lùng này. Tôi đã đến Cửu Long giang miền Tây Nam Bộ và từng thấy con nước mãnh liệt của nó. Nguồn của nó không phải tầm thường, dòng sông đó là anh em với Hằng hà, Trường Giang, nó mang khí lạnh của Hy Mã, sức sáng của tuyết trắng, sự uy nghi của non cao, cái bí ẩn của các Man-đa-la vô hình. Nếu nó có bị ô nhiễm thì cũng vì con người bạc nghĩa, thế nhưng dù thế nó vẫn nhân hậu sống theo người. Nó vẫn không hế mất tính thiêng liêng của nguồn cội và vì tâm người ô nhiễm nên cảm nhận chúng nhiễm ô. Về sau, tôi còn đến Hằng hà nhiều lần trên bước lữ hành tại Ấn Độ cũng như sẽ có dịp đi dọc Trường Giang qua những vùng linh địa của Trung Quốc. Rồi lại có ngày tôi đã tôi đã đến cao nguyên Tây Tạng, đi dọc sông Tsangpo chảy từ hàm ngựa và thở hít không khí loãng trên miền đất cao 4000m trong Man-đa-la vĩ đại của địa cầu. Một ngày nào đó hy vọng tôi sẽ có dịp đến thượng nguồn Cửu Long, sẽ thấy một màu nước xanh lục như màu nước Hằng hà và sẽ nhớ về miền Tây Nam Bộ của mình.”
― Nguyễn Tường Bách, Mùi Hương Trầm

“We came to a tiny hamlet. There were no more than six little houses nestling in the deep steep valley. Smoke, rising through the rough wooden roof-slats, made the homes look cosy and inviting but we didn’t expect a welcome there.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Himalayan Hideout

“The tiny tea-shop beside the eleven water spouts was at the edge of the Dhorpatan Valley. From there we could see right across the wide, wind-swept peat-bog. The high mountain ridges that walled in the valley seemed to catch the rain and send it down here. Even the air we were breathing was wet.
Golden eagles played on the updrafts. Two, one a little smaller than the other, circled on a thermal. They looked huge, but when others disappeared behind a mountain ridge, I realised they were further away and even bigger than I first thought.
The nearest eagles half folded their wings and plummeted earthwards, still circling each other as they dived head first. They touched claws as they spiralled down, in complete control.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Himalayan Hostages

“The real hero of the Himalayas are not the mountaineers but the Sherpas!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Ready?’ Bim and James nodded and clung on to the flimsy bamboo basketwork that formed the sides of the tray. I pushed them over the edge. They sped away, rattling down. The little basket went hurtling away with James shrieking like a crazed jackal. They reached the lowest point on the cable and continued a little way up on the other side. The momentum didn’t help them much though. Soon they had stopped and Bim was standing with both her hands on the cable. If you lost balance and grabbed the cable downhill of the wheels, I could picture now how easy it would be for the wheels – pulled down by your body weight – to run over your fingers. Bim was trying to pull them up the other side.”
― Jane Wilson-Howarth, Himalayan Heist: an Alex and James wildlife adventure in Nepal

“Success doesn’t just happen;
it doesn’t pop out on its own.
Success is all about
the choices you make.
It’s a balancing act between
what to choose and what not to.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya, Our Nepal, Our Pride

“Life hit him with the biggest burden it could find but yet it couldn’t knock him down. He is smiling as a little Nepali boy with rhododendron flowers in his hands high up in the Himalayas and is making everybody around him cheerful and calm.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“I guess the hardest part was crossing Himalayan mountains with a pushbike.”
― Martins Ate, Destination: Me: 108 Ascetic Days Across Eurasia

“I would climb the mountains frequently to tune in my nature with theirs.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya