I come more and more to the conclusion that wilderness, in America or anywhere else, is the only thing left that is worth saving.

Most academic economists know nothing of economy. In fact, they know little of anything.

Suicide: Don't knock it if you ain't tried it.

A true conservative must necessarily be a conservationist.

Rocks, like louseworts and snail darters and pupfish and 3rdworld black, lesbian, feminist, militant poets, have rights, too. Especially the right to exist.

Strolling on, it seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life-forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.

You can't belay a man who's falling in love.