# Blue Highways
## Metadata
- Author:: [[William Least Heat-Moon]]
- Full Title:: Blue Highways
- Category: #books
## Highlights
> It’s a contention of Heat-Moon’s—believing as he does any traveler who misses the journey misses about all he’s going to get—that a man becomes his attentions. His observations and curiosity, they make and remake him. ([Location 321](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=321))
> Because they cared more about adapting to the cosmos than to a society bereft of restraint, the Shakers—like the red man—could love craft and yet never become materialists. ([Location 462](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=462))
> The rill running back and forth under the highway, of course, would have to be straightened to conform to the angles and gradients of the engineers. Highway as analog: social engineers draw blueprints to straighten treacherous and inefficient switchbacks of men with old, curvy notions; taboo engineers lay out federally approved culverts to drain the overflow of passions; mind engineers bulldoze ups and downs to make men levelheaded. Whitman: “O public road, you express me better than I can express myself.” ([Location 728](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=728))
> You never feel better than when you start feeling good after you’ve been feeling bad. In the truck I laid out a breakfast of bread, cheese, raisins, and tomato juice. ([Location 899](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=899))
> He paused for a slice of orange. “May I suggest how it was that Jimmy Carter rose from what some have called ‘nowhere’ to the Presidency?” “You may.” “Because he showed us he came from the land. To an American, land is solidity, goodness, and hope. American history is about land.” I kept my silence, and he finished the orange and with precision wiped his fingers with a tissue. “Now I remember the sharecropper families. My father was a county agent. The sharecropper system descended from the plantation system but left behind the protective responsibility of the head of house for his workers. Farmers—black and white—became economic helots. The tenant system is indeed gone, but corporate farming comes on apace and systems and machinery will dispossess men one step further. The hired hand will never see the boss’s face—unless he goes to Hartford and reads the corporate bylaws.” ([Location 1122](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=1122))
> Your worst Southern cracker is better than a Northern liberal, when it comes to duplicity anyway, because you know right off where the cracker crumbles. With a Northerner, you don’t know until it counts, and that’s when you get a job done on yourself.” ([Location 2256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=2256))
> Eastward, a dusty spume of wind created by thermal pressures spun wildly about the sage and thistle. People of the Old Testament heard the voice of God in desert whirlwinds, but Southwestern Indians saw evil spirits in the spumes and sang aloud if one crossed their path; that’s why, in New Mexico and Arizona today, the little thermals are “dust devils.” ([Location 2855](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=2855))
> If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring. ([Location 3933](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=3933))
> THIRD: Still waiting on the weather, I started reading a book I’d bought in Phoenix, The Sacred Pipe, Black Elk’s account of the ancient rites of the Oglala Sioux. In contrast to the good and straight red road of life, Black Elk says, the blue road is the route of “one who is distracted, who is ruled by his senses, and who lives for himself rather than for his people.” ([Location 4005](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=4005))
> A man lives in things and things are moving. He stands apart in such a temporary way it is hardly worth speaking of. If that perception dims egocentrism, that illusion of what man is, then it also enlarges his self, that multiple yet whole part which he has been, will be, is. Ego, craving distinction, belongs to the narrowness of now; but self, looking for union, belongs to the past and future, to the continuum, to the outside. Of all the visions of the Grandfathers the greatest is this: To seek the high concord, a man looks not deeper within—he reaches farther out. ([Location 4444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=4444))
> In a hotel room at the geographical center of North America, a neon sign blinking red through the cold curtains, I lay quietly like a small idea in a vacant mind. ([Location 5038](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=5038))
> Behold and see as you pass by, As you are now so once was I; As I am now so you must be, Prepare for Death & follow me. ([Location 6566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=6566))
> We live in dependence, not independently. ([Location 7199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=7199))
> By seeing both the futility in trying to relive the old life and the danger in trying to obliterate it, man can gain the capacity to make anew. His very form depends not on repetition but upon variation from old patterns. In response to stress, biological survival requires genetic change; it necessitates a turning away from doomed replication. And what of history? Was it different? ([Location 7388](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=7388))
# Blue Highways
## Metadata
- Author:: [[William Least Heat-Moon]]
- Full Title:: Blue Highways
- Category: #books
## Highlights
> It’s a contention of Heat-Moon’s—believing as he does any traveler who misses the journey misses about all he’s going to get—that a man becomes his attentions. His observations and curiosity, they make and remake him. ([Location 321](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=321))
> Because they cared more about adapting to the cosmos than to a society bereft of restraint, the Shakers—like the red man—could love craft and yet never become materialists. ([Location 462](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=462))
> The rill running back and forth under the highway, of course, would have to be straightened to conform to the angles and gradients of the engineers. Highway as analog: social engineers draw blueprints to straighten treacherous and inefficient switchbacks of men with old, curvy notions; taboo engineers lay out federally approved culverts to drain the overflow of passions; mind engineers bulldoze ups and downs to make men levelheaded. Whitman: “O public road, you express me better than I can express myself.” ([Location 728](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=728))
> You never feel better than when you start feeling good after you’ve been feeling bad. In the truck I laid out a breakfast of bread, cheese, raisins, and tomato juice. ([Location 899](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=899))
> He paused for a slice of orange. “May I suggest how it was that Jimmy Carter rose from what some have called ‘nowhere’ to the Presidency?” “You may.” “Because he showed us he came from the land. To an American, land is solidity, goodness, and hope. American history is about land.” I kept my silence, and he finished the orange and with precision wiped his fingers with a tissue. “Now I remember the sharecropper families. My father was a county agent. The sharecropper system descended from the plantation system but left behind the protective responsibility of the head of house for his workers. Farmers—black and white—became economic helots. The tenant system is indeed gone, but corporate farming comes on apace and systems and machinery will dispossess men one step further. The hired hand will never see the boss’s face—unless he goes to Hartford and reads the corporate bylaws.” ([Location 1122](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=1122))
> Your worst Southern cracker is better than a Northern liberal, when it comes to duplicity anyway, because you know right off where the cracker crumbles. With a Northerner, you don’t know until it counts, and that’s when you get a job done on yourself.” ([Location 2256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=2256))
> Eastward, a dusty spume of wind created by thermal pressures spun wildly about the sage and thistle. People of the Old Testament heard the voice of God in desert whirlwinds, but Southwestern Indians saw evil spirits in the spumes and sang aloud if one crossed their path; that’s why, in New Mexico and Arizona today, the little thermals are “dust devils.” ([Location 2855](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=2855))
> If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring. ([Location 3933](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=3933))
> THIRD: Still waiting on the weather, I started reading a book I’d bought in Phoenix, The Sacred Pipe, Black Elk’s account of the ancient rites of the Oglala Sioux. In contrast to the good and straight red road of life, Black Elk says, the blue road is the route of “one who is distracted, who is ruled by his senses, and who lives for himself rather than for his people.” ([Location 4005](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=4005))
> A man lives in things and things are moving. He stands apart in such a temporary way it is hardly worth speaking of. If that perception dims egocentrism, that illusion of what man is, then it also enlarges his self, that multiple yet whole part which he has been, will be, is. Ego, craving distinction, belongs to the narrowness of now; but self, looking for union, belongs to the past and future, to the continuum, to the outside. Of all the visions of the Grandfathers the greatest is this: To seek the high concord, a man looks not deeper within—he reaches farther out. ([Location 4444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=4444))
> In a hotel room at the geographical center of North America, a neon sign blinking red through the cold curtains, I lay quietly like a small idea in a vacant mind. ([Location 5038](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=5038))
> Behold and see as you pass by, As you are now so once was I; As I am now so you must be, Prepare for Death & follow me. ([Location 6566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=6566))
> We live in dependence, not independently. ([Location 7199](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=7199))
> By seeing both the futility in trying to relive the old life and the danger in trying to obliterate it, man can gain the capacity to make anew. His very form depends not on repetition but upon variation from old patterns. In response to stress, biological survival requires genetic change; it necessitates a turning away from doomed replication. And what of history? Was it different? ([Location 7388](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006BAW16O&location=7388))