Why do progress and beauty have to be so opposed?

Travel Far, Pay No Fare... a book can take you anywhere.

The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.

I am very fond of the oyster shell. It is humble and awkward and ugly. It is slate-colored and unsymmetrical. Its form is not primarily beautiful but functional. I make fun of its knobbiness. Sometimes I resent its burdens and excrescences. But its tireless adaptability and tenacity draw my astonished admiration and sometimes even my tears. And it is comfortable in its familiarity, its homeliness, like old garden gloves when have molded themselves perfectly to the shape of the hand. I do not like to put it down. I will not want to leave it.

The fundamental magic of flying, a miracle that has nothing to do with any of its practical purposes - purposes of speed, accessibility, and convenience - and will not change as they change.

Cut asparagus at night - in desperation. When one is very tired one always does one more thing.

If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.