{"id":22607872,"url":"https://github.com/patch/lichen-quotes","last_synced_at":"2026-01-07T14:31:53.999Z","repository":{"id":66902252,"uuid":"32659939","full_name":"patch/lichen-quotes","owner":"patch","description":"A collection of quotes about lichens","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2015-04-06T01:16:59.000Z","size":156,"stargazers_count":0,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":2,"default_branch":"master","last_synced_at":"2025-02-03T08:48:04.826Z","etag":null,"topics":[],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"","language":null,"has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":null,"status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/patch.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":null,"code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null}},"created_at":"2015-03-22T03:14:43.000Z","updated_at":"2015-03-22T03:21:03.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2023-02-20T15:30:35.606Z","dependency_job_id":null,"html_url":"https://github.com/patch/lichen-quotes","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":[],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/patch%2Flichen-quotes","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/patch%2Flichen-quotes/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/patch%2Flichen-quotes/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/patch%2Flichen-quotes/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/patch","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/patch/lichen-quotes/tar.gz/refs/heads/master","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":246106697,"owners_count":20724401,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":[],"created_at":"2024-12-08T14:22:37.108Z","updated_at":"2026-01-07T14:31:53.961Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/patch.png","language":null,"funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# Lichen Quotes\n\nA collection of quotes about lichens.\n\nAll quotes copyright their respective authors.\n\n## Edward Abbey\n\n### _The Brave Cowboy_, 1956\n\n\u003e The black rock was sharp-edged, hot, and hard as corundum; it seemed not\n\u003e merely alien but impervious to life. Yet on the southern face of almost every\n\u003e rock the lichens grew, yellow, rusty-brown, yellow-green, like patches of\n\u003e dirty paint daubed on the stone.\n\n### _Desert Solitaire_, 1968\n\n\u003e Here the canyon walls are a little wider, permitting the sun, for perhaps a\n\u003e couple of hours during the summer day, to shine directly down into this\n\u003e cul-de-sac. A rivulet of clear water pours into the pool; glints and flecks of\n\u003e light reflected from its agitated surface dance over the dark-golden walls of\n\u003e the glen. Lichens are growing there, green, red, orange, and along the seep\n\u003e line are beds of poison ivy, scarlet monkeyflower, maidenhair fern, death\n\u003e camas, helleborine orchid and small pale yellow columbines. There are no trees\n\u003e or shrubs, for the sunlight is too brief.\n\n---\n\n\u003e I stand on broken rock, slabs of granite veined with feldspar and quartz,\n\u003e colored with patches of green and auburn lichens.\n\n### _Black Sun_, 1971\n\n\u003e They walked over the gray rock daubed with green, red, yellow, rust-brown\n\u003e lichens, past the twisted and silvery skeletons of long-dead trees, and along\n\u003e an icy cornice of snow which overhung the inner basin. Down in there, among\n\u003e the rock slides, snow fields and pinnacles, were islands of forest, and\n\u003e springs and running streams, deer and columbines and purple fields of lupine\n\u003e and larkspur. Above them was only the sun, the solitary star in a burning\n\u003e wine-dark sky.\n\n---\n\n\u003e And then, fighting the wind, like forcing a way through an invisible wall,\n\u003e they descended the ridge beyond, where there was no trail, and entered the\n\u003e inner basin of the mountain. Free of the wind, they picked their way down a\n\u003e talus of loose rock between towering extrusions of ancient lava—shapes like\n\u003e gargoyles, helmeted warriors, fin-backed tyrannosaurs in various hues of rust\n\u003e and sulfurous yellow, painted with lichens—until they came again to the order\n\u003e and sanity of the forest, the scented pines, the slim and virginal aspens, and\n\u003e grassy fields glowing with silverleaf lupine, larkspur, scarlet pentstemon,\n\u003e where small butterflies with yellow wings, like flying flowers, danced in the\n\u003e air and sunlight.\n\n### _The Monkey Wrench Gang_, 1975\n\n\u003e Although the canyon walls are hundreds of feet high and often overhanging,\n\u003e there is little shade. Too dry for cottonwood. The only plant growth in sight\n\u003e is a clump of datura with wilted blooms, a dead pinyon pine, some snakeweed,\n\u003e and lichens on the rock.\n\n### _The Journey Home_, 1977\n\n\u003e On the shady northern side of sandstone and lava we find green, gold, black,\n\u003e and auburn lichens in symbiotic clusters, patiently dissolving the rock of\n\u003e ages into sand and soil.\n\n---\n\n\u003e Despite variety, most of the surface of Death Valley is dead. Dead, dead,\n\u003e deathly—a land of jagged salt pillars, crackling and tortured crusts of mud,\n\u003e sunburnt gravel bars the color of rust, rocks and boulders of metallic blue\n\u003e naked even of lichen.\n\n### _Abbey’s Road_, 1979\n\n\u003e Untrod by cattle for many years, the sand bore on its surface a type of dark\n\u003e primitive moss called cryptogam. Dry, crunchy, but alive, this humble plant is\n\u003e of the first to begin the transformation of bare sand into organic soil.\n\u003e (Don’t step on the cryptogams!) Growing on top of the cryptogams, carrying the\n\u003e earth-making process forward, were clumps of gray and bluish lichens.\n\n---\n\n\u003e “Why do lichens always grow in bunches?” asked Suzie.  \n\u003e “Lichen attracts lichen. Symbiosis.”\n\n### _Down the River_, 1982\n\n\u003e Near the summit of the cliffs, where the moisture is insufficient to support\n\u003e cactus, we see gray-green streaks of lichen clinging to the stone like a mold.\n\n### _Beyond the Wall_, 1984\n\n\u003e Rock the color of raw liver, of rusted iron, of moldy sponge cake, of\n\u003e verdigris. Walls painted with masses of lichens in green, gray, yellow,\n\u003e orange, blue.\n\n---\n\n\u003e I shuffle barefoot over the stones, pee on a clump of cryptogams—strange\n\u003e wedlock of lichen and algae—and watch their furry leaves exfoliate and turn\n\u003e temporary green, tricked by my golden stream into their preprogrammed response\n\u003e to rain. A crude joke, but it won’t hurt them; in this heavily alkaline soil a\n\u003e gentle shower of uric acid might even strike them as curiously refreshing.\n\n### _One Life at a Time, Please_, 1988\n\n\u003e But good literary critics are plentiful, common as lichens on an academic\n\u003e wall.\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fpatch%2Flichen-quotes","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fpatch%2Flichen-quotes","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fpatch%2Flichen-quotes/lists"}