This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affectations glow and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.
Bernard DeVotoThe West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below twenty inches. When you reach the line which marks that drop - for convenience, the one hundredth meridian - you have reached the West.
Bernard DeVotoThe only places where American medicine can fully live up to its possibilities are the teaching hospitals.
Bernard DeVotoOne may lack words to express the impact of beauty but no one who has felt it remains untouched. It is renewal, enlargement, intensification. The parks preserve it permanently in the inheritance of the American citizens.
Bernard DeVotoIt is imperative to maintain portions of the wilderness untouched so that a tree will rot where it falls, a waterfall will pour its curve without generating electricity, a trumpeter swan may float on uncontaminated water - and moderns may at least see what their ancestors knew in their nerves and blood.
Bernard DeVoto