“The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life. They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change.” —Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel. Photograph by Terry Barnes, view from Craggy Gardens
“The French Broad is a river and a watershed and a way of life where day-before-yesterday and day-after-tomorrow exist in an odd and fascinating harmony….” —Wilma Dykeman, The French Broad. Photograph by Lori Kincaid, French Broad River in Hot Springs
“It is shaped somewhat like a fist, with its jagged knuckles against the lofty ridge of the Smoky Mountains along the Tennessee border, and it lies pent, but not cramped, among great heights, shaggy with trees.” —Manly Wade Wellman, The Kingdom of Madison: A Southern Mountain Fastness and Its People. Photograph by Lori Kincaid, view from Max Patch
“For a long time my chief interest was not in human neighbors, but in the mountains themselves—in that mysterious beckoning hinterland which rose right back of my chimney and spread outward, almost to three cardinal points of the compass, mile after mile, hour after hour of lusty climbing—an Eden still unpeopled and unspoiled….” —Horace Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders. Photograph by Lori Kincaid, view from Clingmans Dome
“The river plunges into its dark depths in a beautiful fall, and then rushes forward over a bed of rock. Cliffs worn by the ceaseless action of the water into the most fantastic shapes lean over it; detached masses of granite strew its channel, and the tumult of its fretted water only ceases when it falls now and then into crystal pools of placid gentleness.” —Christian Reid, The Land of the Sky. Photograph by Mark Houser, Linville Falls
