- Journeys give us an opportunity to experience many things - reaching our destination is perhaps the least important; for me that completion is always coupled with a sense of sadness. We are given the opportunity to live in a state of grace, of heightened intuition; our journey being a series of signs, symbols and messengers we meet along the way. We are given the opportunity to overcome difficulties and obstacles, not least those which exist within ourselves. We are given the opportunity to change; to undergo rebirth at one extreme - at the other to develop in some small way the person we already are. To live this incredible magic all that is needed is for the journeyman to travel with an open heart and an open mind, and I might add, wide-open eyes. Bridget Atkinson Of Pilgrims and Scallops: Journey to Santiago de Compostela
- ... pilgrimage, then, and, as in all pilgrimages, what matters most is reaching the goal, sustaining faith through the travails of the journey. The stopping Âplaces, the pauses, the tests of faith, the perils to be overcome, count for very little, so long as they are survived; they are merely stages on the road to salvation. Barry Unsworth, Sunday Book Review, New York Times
- At the threshold of a new millennium we turn and look back to the old pilgrim tradition. Is there anything we have forgotten? Ancient roads are marked out anew. People again wander along the common paths, towards common goals as generations before us have done! Arne Bakkens (Pilgrim Priest)
- Tourists pass through places, places pass through pilgrims. Catherine Osiek
- Pilgrimages should be a great purifier and should involve some physical hardships. His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa
- It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have dared do it. Great decisions are made in the heat of the moment. I took with me two pairs of shoes, a few clothes and very little money, just as much as I would need to get visas in Moscow, since the Soviet Union had not yet restored relations with the outside world, and just enough to get me by. Yevgeny Pushenko The amazing pilgrimage of Russian businessman turned monk
- It seems reasonable to ask why anyone would want to undertake a long-distance journey such as the via Francigena on foot. The question remains largely unanswered but I'll try. I had experienced the archetypal yearning to practice the type of embodied spirituality that is to be found by going on pilgrimage. I have a stirring that leads me to want to walk in the footsteps of earlier pilgrims. No matter how weak and far from the Christian religion I may feel before going on pilgrimage during the time on the road I'm changing and experience lightness and freedom, despite the hardships and ongoing uncertainties, and the monotonous routine of repetitive long-distance walking and daily chores. I explore new horizons and I'm in contact with God. Alfred L. C. van Amelsvoort Pilgrimage, retirement, immigration and other odd ideas