In behaving respectfully toward all that the land contains, it is possible to imagine a stifling ignorance falling away from us.

The attempt to close the gap between what is known and what IS, is the temptation behind the apple in Genesis.

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.

real beauty is so deep you have to move into darkness to understand it.

Over the years, one comes to measure a place, too, not just for the beauty it may give, the balminess of its breezes, the insouciance and relaxation it encourages, the sublime pleasures it offers, but for what it teaches. The way in which it alters our perception of the human. It is not so much that you want to return to indifferent or difficult places, but that you want to not forget.

It does not demean men to want to be what they imagine the wolf to be, but it does demean them to kill the animal for it.

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