His words span rivers and mountains, but his thoughts are still only six inches long.

Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.

The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.

In middle life, the human back is spoiling for a technical knockout and will use the flimsiest excuse, even a sneeze, to fall apart.

Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace.

"Have you ever found anything that gives you relief?" "Yes. A drink."

Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and intent.