Quotes from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone. The only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It's like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it's there and keep falling in. After a while, it's still there, but you learn to walk round it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If we don't go mad once in a while, there's no hope.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“You got up, and you did something. And if trying to find a way when you don't even know you can get there isn't a small miracle; then I don't know what is.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“But maybe it's what the world needs. A little less sense, and a little more faith.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“It was not a life, if lived without love.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He must have driven this way countless times, and yet he had no memory of the scenery. He must have been so caught up in the day's agenda, and arriving punctually at their destination, that the land beyond the car had been no more than a wash of one green, and a backdrop of one hill. Life was very different when you walked through it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, it stands to reason that I'm going to get there. I've begun to think we sit far more than we're supposed to." He smiled. "Why else would we have feet?”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing it for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Beginnings could happen more than once or in different ways. You could think you were starting something afresh, when actually what you were doing was carrying on as before. He had faced his shortcomings and overcome them and so the real business of walking was happening only now.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“There is so much to the human mind we don't understand. But, you see, if you have faith, you can do anything.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If we can't accept what we don't know, there really is no hope.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“I've begun to think that we sit far more than we're supposed to...Why else would we have feet?”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“you could be ordinary and attempt something extraordinary, without being able to explain it in a logical way.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The past was the past; there was no escaping your beginnings.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“...People would make the decisions they wished to make and some of them would hurt both themselves and those who loved them, and some would pass unnoticed, while others would bring joy.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The least planned part of the journey, however, was the journey itself.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“But it never ceases to amaze me how difficult the things that are supposed to be instinctive really are.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He wished the man would honor the true meaning of words, instead of using them as ammunition.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was his journey to accept the strangeness of others. As a passerby, he was in a place where everything, not only the land, was open. People would feel free to talk, and he was free to listen. To carry a little of them as he went.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The people he met, the places he passed, were all steps in his journey, and he kept a place inside his heart for each of them.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He had felt safe with what he had confided. It had been the same with Queenie. You could say things in the car and know she had tucked them somewhere safe among her thoughts, and that she would not judge him for them, or hold it against him in years to come. He supposed that was what friendship was, and regretted all the years he had spent without it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Life was very different when you walked through it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“There was no escaping what he had realized as he fought for warmth in the night. With or without him,the moon and the wind would go on, rising and falling. The land would keep stretching ahead until it hit the sea. People would keep dying. It made no difference if Harold walked, or trembled, or stayed at home.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, it stands to reason that I'm going to get there.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“You have to believe. That's what I think. It's not about medicine and all that stuff. You have to believe a person can get better. There is so much in the human mind we don't understand. But, you see, if you have faith, you can do anything.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

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“Vladimir conosceva la vita e aveva una visione chiara di come andava il mondo. Tutto quel che era buono, ordinato, bello, pulito per lui era «normal». La libertà di darsi da fare? «Normal.» Amare le donne? «Normal.» Quello che non era più «normal» era la Russia perché non c’era più ordine, perché fra mafiosi, gangster e poliziotti non c’è più differenza e con la mano faceva il gesto: «tutti uguali», gli uni come altri, tutti mischiati. Indicava le mostrine di un ufficiale e diceva: «Mafia; no normal». «Democracy?» si domandava retoricamente e si rispondeva: «No normal. Popolo russo ha bisogno di dittatore. Grande dittatore per Russia è normal. Stalin per Russia è normal». Non credo lo dicesse solo perché Stalin era, come lui, un georgiano. Lo diceva perché con il fallimento del comunismo e la caduta dell’Impero sovietico, la gente come lui non sa in che cosa sperare, non vede attorno a sé nessuno di grande cui affidare la propria sorte.”
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“Because mankind can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon him, say evolutionary biologists to develop another law to abide by if he wishes to survive, to not outstrip his food base. He must learn restraint. He must derive some other, wiser way of behaving toward the land. He must be more attentive to the biological imperatives of the system of sun-driven protoplasm upon which he, too, is still dependent. Not because he must, because he lacks inventiveness, but because herein is the accomplishment of the wisdom that for centuries he has aspired to. Having taken on his own destiny, he must now think with critical intelligence about where to defer.”
― Barry López, quote from Arctic Dreams

“Ireland, like Ukraine, is a largely rural country which suffers from its proximity to a more powerful industrialised neighbour. Ireland’s contribution to the history of tractors is the genius engineer Harry Ferguson, who was born in 1884, near Belfast.
Ferguson was a clever and mischievous man, who also had a passion for aviation. It is said that he was the first man in Great Britain to build and fly his own aircraft in 1909. But he soon came to believe that improving efficiency of food production would be his unique service to mankind. Harry Ferguson’s first two-furrow plough was attached to the chassis of the Ford Model T car converted into a tractor, aptly named Eros. This plough was mounted on the rear of the tractor, and through ingenious use of balance springs it could be raised or lowered by the driver using a lever beside his seat. Ford, meanwhile, was developing its own tractors. The Ferguson design was more advanced, and made use of hydraulic linkage, but Ferguson knew that despite his engineering genius, he could not achieve his dream on his own. He needed a larger company to produce his design. So he made an informal agreement with Henry Ford, sealed only by a handshake. This Ford-Ferguson partnership gave to the world a new type of Fordson tractor far superior to any that had been known before, and the precursor of all modern-type tractors. However, this agreement by a handshake collapsed in 1947 when Henry Ford II took over the empire of his father, and started to produce a new Ford 8N tractor, using the Ferguson system. Ferguson’s open and cheerful nature was no match for the ruthless mentality of the American businessman. The matter was decided in court in 1951. Ferguson claimed $240 million, but was awarded only $9.25 million. Undaunted in spirit, Ferguson had a new idea. He approached the Standard Motor Company at Coventry with a plan, to adapt the Vanguard car for use as tractor. But this design had to be modified, because petrol was still rationed in the post-war period. The biggest challenge for Ferguson was the move from petrol-driven to diesel-driven engines and his success gave rise to the famous TE-20, of which more than half a million were built in the UK. Ferguson will be remembered for bringing together two great engineering stories of our time, the tractor and the family car, agriculture and transport, both of which have contributed so richly to the well-being of mankind.”
― Marina Lewycka, quote from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

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