Night and day the river flows. If time is the mind of space, the River is the soul of the desert. Brave boatmen come, they go, they die, the voyage flows on forever. We are all canyoneers. We are all passengers on this little mossy ship, this delicate dory sailing round the sun that humans call the earth. Joy, shipmates, joy.

Shakespeare wrote great poetry and preposterous plays. Who really cares, for example, which petty tyrant rules Milan? Or who succeeds to the throne of Denmark? Or why the barons ganged up on Richard II?

Music clouds the intellect but clarifies the heart.

If people persist in trespassing upon the grizzlies' territory, we must accept the fact that the grizzlies, from time to time, will harvest a few trespassers.

There is no trajectory so pathetic as that of an artist in decline.

In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty.

The artist's job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live.