The land gets inside of us; and we must decide one way or another what this means, what we will do about it.

The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference. To be indifferent is to not express love.

The land gets inside of us; and we must decide one way or another what this means, what we will do about it.

People think that if you've written a book and somebody's given you a pat on the back then, you know, it's all - you're all settled, you know? You're going to be fine. I know that if I'm not confused, and really afraid, my work isn't going to be any good.

I lay there knowing something eerie ties us to the world of animals. Sometimes the animals pull you backward into it. You share hunger and fear with them like salt in blood.

Watching the animals come and go, and feeling the land swell up to meet them and then feeling it grow still at their departure, I came to think of the migrations as breath, as the land breathing. In spring a great inhalation of light and animals. The long-bated breath of summer. And an exhalation that propelled them all south in the fall.

Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.