“The drive to see what’s over the next hill is in part the fear that one may never know, that if one doesn’t go over the hill today, one may never get farther than the village graveyard.”
Source: Mother of Storms (1994), p. 484
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John Barnes 38
American science fiction writer 1957Related quotes

“Never give up… No one knows what's going to happen next.”
Variant: Never give up. No one knows what's going to happen next.

CNN Larry King Weekend (2002)
Context: Ireland has a very different attitude to success than a lot of places, certainly than over here in the United States. In the United States, you look at the guy that lives in the mansion on the hill, and you think, you know, one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion. In Ireland, people look up at the guy in the mansion on the hill and go, one day, I'm going to get that bastard. It's a different mind-set.

"Although innumerable beings have been led to Nirvana no being has been led to Nirvana", §5, p. 85
Knots (1970)

“Over the hills and far away.”
Act I, scene i; comparable to: "O'er the hills and far away", D'Urfey, Pills to purge Melancholy (1628–1723).
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

“How beautiful they are,
The lordly ones
Who dwell in the hills,
In the hollow hills.”
Faery song from play The Immortal Hour.

Ignorance of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

"Deer Fence" (鹿柴), trans. Burton Watson
Variant translations:
No one is seen in deserted hills,
Only the echoes of speech is heard.
Sunlight cast back comes deep in the woods,
And shines once again upon the green moss.
Translated by Stephen Owen
On the empty mountain, seeing no one,
Only hearing the echoes of someone's voice;
Returning light enters the deep forest,
Again shining upon the green moss.
Translated by Richard W. Bodman and Victor H. Mair