80+ Grand Canyon Quotes About The Most Breathtaking National Park

Georgia Stone
Dec 12, 2023 By Georgia Stone
Originally Published on Feb 03, 2021
Its beauty attracts many visitors towards it
Age: 0-99
Read time: 13.7 Min

Did you know that the Grand Canyon is over 1800 meters deep?

For the rest of the world, this park may be seen as one of the many natural wonders of the world. But for Arizonans, this park holds a special place in their hearts and has resulted in many wonderful Grand Canyon quotes.

From Theodore Roosevelt to John Wesley Powell, many authors have written wonderful quotes about the Grand Canyon which demonstrate the beauty of this great national park. These Grand Canyon captions and quotes about why you should go to the Grand Canyon will really tempt you to plan a visit  to this breathtaking park, that is 1829 meters deep. Its beauty attracts many visitors towards it.

If you found our camping quotes and [Charles Darwin quotes] interesting, you will surely enjoy quotes about the Grand Canyon written by great authors like Theodore Roosevelt and John Wesley Powell.

The Best Quotes About The Grand Canyon

People say there are hidden caves around the Grand Canyon.

John Wesley Powell, Don Marquis and Theodore Roosevelt are amongst the many of the famous authors that have written about the Grand Canyon. Take a look at the Grand Canyon quotes below to see how they outline the beauty of this natural wonder. Which is your favorite of these Grand Canyon quotes?

1. “There’s not a single person in Arizona today who would say the Grand Canyon was a mistake.”

— Stewart Udall.

2. “The elements that unite to make the Grand Canyon the most sublime spectacle in nature are multifarious and exceedingly diverse.”

— John Wesley Powell.

3. “In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.”

— Theodore Roosevelt.

4. “It’s like trying to describe what you feel when you’re standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon or remembering your first love or the birth of your child. You have to be there to really know what it’s like.”

— Harrison Schmitt.

5. “The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself.”

— John Wesley Powell.

6. “Publishing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo”

— Don Marquis.

7. “Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.”

— Theodore Roosevelt.

8. “It’s always been a luxury to be able to hop a plane to Paris, to Venice, to the Grand Canyon.”

— Nancy Gibbs.

9. “Life is supposed to be a series of peaks and valleys. The secret is to keep the valleys from becoming Grand Canyons.”

— Bernard Williams.

10. “The Grand Canyon is living evidence of the power of water over a period of time. The power may not manifest immediately. Water can be very powerful, like a tidal wave.”

— Frederick Lenz.

11. “Occasionally we glimpse the South Rim, four or five thousand feet above. From the rims the canyon seems oceanic; at the surface of the river the feeling is intimate.”

― Barry López.

12. “I don’t believe that anyone can see the Grand Canyon area for themselves and not know that we have to do everything we can to protect it for future generations.”

— Nolan Gould.

13. “Beautiful doesn't begin to describe it. A flower is beautiful. But this is beautiful the way that a person is beautiful.”

― Jeri Smith, 'Ready, Requiem For The Devil'.

14. “There will never be a photograph of the Grand Canyon that can adequately describe its depth, breadth, and true beauty.”

― Stefanie Payne, 'A Year In The National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip'.

15. “I would rather stumble by chance on a tiny stream in the woods than plan a trip to the Grand Canyon.”

― Marty Rubin.

16. “I sit watching until dusk, hypnotized. I think of the sea as continually sloshing back and forth, repetitive, but my psyche goes with the river - always loping downhill, purposeful, listening only to gravity.”

― Ann Zwinger, 'Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores The Colorado River Through The Grand Canyon'.

17. “It is a spectacular illusion, a deeply three-dimensional scene flattened onto an earthly canvas.”

― Stefanie Payne, 'A Year In The National Parks: The Greatest American Road Trip'.

18. “As dawn leaks into the sky it edits out the stars like excess punctuation marks, deleting asterisks and periods, commas, and semi-colons, leaving only unhinged thoughts rotating and pivoting, and unsecured words.”

― Ann Zwinger, 'Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores The Colorado River Through The Grand Canyon'.

19. “Mortals: meet the empty air, arias carved out of rocks beyond our puny clock philosophy.”

― Thea Gavin.

20. “It seemed so improbable. But so did everything else that I really paid attention to.”

― Carrie Saxifrage, 'The Big Swim: Coming Ashore In A World Adrift'.

21. “I believe in a benevolent God not because He created the Grand Canyon or Michelangelo, but because He gave us snacks.”

― Paul Rudnick, 'I Shudder And Other Reactions To Life, Death, And New Jersey'.

22. “The sky is a meadow of wildstar flowers.”

― Ann Zwinger, 'Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores The Colorado River Through The Grand Canyon'.

23. “Every season has its peaks and valleys. What you have to try to do is eliminate the Grand Canyon.”

― Andy Van Slyke.

24. “There seemed to be a pattern to the drips from each seep, a pattern I had heard before, wondering each time if there might be a sort of specific timing... The sounds were predisposed, unaware of anything more important than their own syncopation.”

― Craig Childs, 'The Secret Knowledge Of Water'.

25. “The glories and the beauties of form, color, and sound unite in the Grand Canyon.”

- John Wesley Powell.

26. “Crying – acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon.”

- Ron Swanson, 'Parks And Recreation'.

27. “You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.”

- John Wesley Powell.

28. "Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.”

- George Will.

29. “Well, once you’ve been in the Canyon and once you’ve sort of fallen in love with it, it never ends…it’s always been a fascinating place to me, in fact I’ve often said that if I ever had a mistress it would be the Grand Canyon.”

- Barry Goldwater.

30. “I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.”

- John McCain.

31. “I can still remember my first experience of standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and looking into it. It was so awesome, it took a fair amount of restraint to prevent me from jumping into it, because I was certain I could fly.”

- Mark Goulston.

32. “Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves.”

- John Piper.

33. “I believe in science and evolution. I’ve been to the Grand Canyon.”

- Bill Walton.

34. “We are all starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. Why do we go? Because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than there is in beholding self.”

- John Piper.

35. “The Grand Canyon is carven deep by the master hand; it is the gulf of silence, widened in the desert; it is all time inscribing the naked rock; it is the book of earth.”

- Donald C. Peattie.

36. “Politicians wanted to mine the Grand Canyon for zinc and copper, and Theodore Roosevelt said, 'No.'”

-Douglas Brinkley.

37. “I went to the Grand Canyon with my family when I was about eight years old, and I had a very blah experience. I think the scale of it is too huge - you don't appreciate it.”

-David Roberts.

38. “You can't say you're going to jump the Grand Canyon and then jump some other canyon.”

-Evel Knievel.

39. “Bryce Canyon isn't as famous as the Grand Canyon, but it is just incredible - nothing compares to it.”

-Harry Shearer.

40. “Nearly every President in the past 100 years has declared national monuments, from Teddy Roosevelt creating the Grand Canyon National Monument, to George W. Bush preserving 10 islands and 140,000 square miles of ocean waters in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.”

-Frances Beinecke.

41. “Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube; there are some things one would rather have done than do.”

-Edward Abbey.

Funny Grand Canyon Quotes

I wish they\u2019d build a ski jump at the Grand Canyon

If you want to witness some funny Grand Canyon quotes made by authors, read the Grand Canyon quotes given below!

42. “I wish they’d build a ski jump at the Grand Canyon; it’d be fantastic.”

-Eddie the Eagle.

43. “I have permits to be the first person in the world to walk across the Grand Canyon so that’s a process we’ll start working on. I’d say within three to five years I'll accomplish that as well.”

-Nik Wallenda.

44. “In golf, 'close' is like the north and south rim of the Grand Canyon.”

-Johnny Miller.

45. “I'd like to see more of Colorado, Utah, and maybe go to Yellowstone. Oh, and I'd like to kayak down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon.”

-Jesse Spencer.

46. “It's not at all naturally human to see something like the Grand Canyon as beautiful.”

-David Roberts.

47. “We did a lot of those road trips, all the mandatory stuff that you should when you're a kid, like Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon and the Sequoias and the western coast.”

-Vicki Lawrence.

48. “I am Hualapai. We are located in Northern Arizona, at the Grand Canyon. We own the Skywalk area.”

-Kiowa Gordon.

49. “Trying to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts with things other than God is like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with marbles.”    

-Peter Kreeft.

50. “Majestic doesn't appeal to us. We like the Grand Canyon better with Clarence and Arlene parked in front of it, smiling.”    

-Garrison Keillor.

51. “The Grand Canyon which yawns between the writer's concept of what he wants to capture in words and what comes through is a cruel abyss.”    

-Fannie Hurst.

52. “If you are working, almost like with layers of the Grand Canyon, there's history within those layers.”    

-Leonardo Drew.

53. “I saw the sun set and rise at the Grand Canyon, and I sang out over the cliffs, picked up tumble weeds along the way and threw them in the back of my car”.

-Madi Diaz.

54. “Myths that need clarification: No matter how many times you see the Grand canyon, you are still emotionally moved to tears. False. It depends on how many children the out-of-towners brought with them who kicked the back of your seat from Phoenix to Flagstaff and got their gum caught in your hair.”

-Erma Bombeck.

55. “I once met a man who said he had visited every exotic place from the Grand Canyon to the Great Wall, but when I questioned him closely I discovered he hadn't seen the songbirds in his own backyard.”

-Richard Bode.

56. “A doctor once told me I feel too much. I said, so does God. Yhat’s why you can see the Grand Canyon from the moon.”

-Andrea Gibson.

57. “It doesn't have to be the Grand Canyon, it could be a city street, it could be the face of another human being - everything is full of wonder.”

-A.C. Grayling.

58. “There should be so many songs out there that it all turns into one big sound and we can put the whole thing into a pickup truck and let it roll off the edge of the Grand Canyon.”

-Beck.

59. “With what you don't know about me, I could just about fill the Grand Canyon.”

-Kevin Smith.

60. “When the last living thing Has died on account of us, How poetical it would be If Earth could say, In a voice floating up Perhaps From the floor Of the Grand Canyon,"It is done." People did not like it here.”

-Kurt Vonnegut.

61. “There's a Grand Canyon sized gulf between explanation and experience.”

-Jad Abumrad.

62. “A rill in a barnyard and the Grand Canyon represent, in the main, stages of valley erosion that began some millions of years apart.”

-George Gaylord Simpson.

63. “Working with Jack [Nicholson] is sort of like standing in front of the Grand Canyon.”

-Diane Keaton.

64. “The game is full of peaks and valleys, the key is to avoid the Grand Canyon.”

-Andy Van Slyke.

65. “... they left me with a Grand Canyon of scar tissue...”

-Holly Marie Combs.

66. “New nemeses keep racing fresh, but I also find challenge in going longer, with only the distance as foe. I run my first 50-mile race, journey across the Grand Canyon and back, circumnavigate Mount St. Helens.”

-Don Kardong.

67. “We've got to step up our conservation efforts before it's too late. We're not protecting our lands and natural resources. Take the Grand Canyon for example; I'm sure that at one time it was a beautiful piece of land, and just look at the way we've let it go.”

- Pat Paulsen.

68. “My goal is that after seeing 'Grand Canyon,' every person in the audience will go home knowing they have to conserve water.”

- Greg MacGillivray.

69. “We didn't have a generation gap, we had a generation Grand Canyon.”

-Mary Brave Bird.

70. “I get very upset when money is being cut and people can't visit the Grand Canyon.”

-Anne Waldman.

71. “I could throw 56-pound words clear across the Grand Canyon. As a matter of course, I went into politics.”

-Henry F. Ashurst

72. “It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.”

-P. G. Wodehouse.

73. “For years, I have been working on crossing the Grand Canyon. Actually, there is nobody who says 'no,' but since this is a project that comes from me and not a commission, I have to find the money, plan the logistics, etcetera.”

-Philippe Petit.

74. “If you're ever if you're ever thinking, 'Oh, but I'm a waste of space and I'm a burden,' remember: that also describes the Grand Canyon. Why don't you have friends and family take pictures of you from a safe distance? Revel in your majestic profile?”

- Maria Bamford.

75. "Seeing the Grand Canyon for yourself? Priceless."

-Unknown*.

76. “There is a gulf between our average Christianity and the church of New Testament that makes the Grand Canyon look like a cavity in someone's tooth.”

- Leonard Ravenhill.

Amazing Grand Canyon Quotes

Check out these Grand Canyon quotes, featuring Grand Canyon movie quotes and quotes that embody the awe of seeing the Grand Canyon.

77. "Wash your spirit clean"

- John Muir.

78. "When your spirit cries for peace, come to a world of canyons deep in the old land."

-August Fruge.

79. "The Colorado River did not form the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon was formed as the flood went down"

- Kevin Hovid.

80. "Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time."

- Lyndon B. Johnson.

81. "See any detour as an opportunity to experience new things."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

82. "Everything the light touches..."

-Simba, 'The Lion King'.

83. "Freedom lies in being bold."

- Robert Frost.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Grand Canyon quotes then why not take a look at  these cabin quotes, or [Bill Nye quotes] for more?

 *Do you know where this quote originated? Please email us to let us know at hello@kidadl.com

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Written by Georgia Stone

Bachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

Georgia Stone picture

Georgia StoneBachelor of Arts specializing in French with Film Studies, Bachelor of Arts (Year Abroad) specializing in Literature, History, Language, Media, and Art

Georgia is an experienced Content Manager with a degree in French and Film Studies from King's College London and Bachelors degree from Université Paris-Sorbonne. Her passion for exploring the world and experiencing different cultures was sparked during her childhood in Switzerland and her year abroad in Paris. In her spare time, Georgia enjoys using London's excellent travel connections to explore further afield.

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