My function as a writer is to provide an atmosphere in which people can think wisely about what we're doing on this planet.

We keep each other alive with our stories. We need to share them, as much as we need to share food. We also require for our health the presence of good companions. One of the most extraordinary things about the land is that it knows this—and it compels language from some of us so that as a community we may converse about this or that place, and speak of the need.

We cannot, of course, save the World because we do not have authority over its parts. We can serve the world though. That is everyone's calling, to lead a life that helps.

No culture has yet solved the dilemma each has faced with the growth of a conscious mind: how to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in all life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s own culture but within oneself.

Throughout the centuries we have projected on to the wolf the qualities we most despise and fear in ourselves.

The gaze of the wolf reached into our soul.

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