Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.

We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it.

One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret.

What does it mean to grow rich? Is it to have red-blooded adventures and to make a ‘fortune,’ which is what brought the whalers and other entrepreneurs north? Or is it, rather, to have a good family life and to be imbued with a far-reaching and intimate knowledge of one’s homeland, which is what the Tununirmiut told the whalers at Pond’s Bay wealth was? Is it to retain a capacity for awe and astonishment in our lives, to continue to hunger after what is genuine and worthy? Is it to live at moral peace with the universe?

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

Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.

I know of no restorative of heart, body, and soul more effective against hopelessness than the restoration of the Earth.