Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.

Be a half-assed crusader, a part-time fanatic. Don't worry to much about the fate of the world. Saving the world is only a hobby. Get out there and enjoy the world, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, husbands wives; climb mountains, run rivers, get drunk, do whatever you want to do while you can, before it's too late.

The absurd vanity of metaphysicians who like to imagine that they create the world by thinking about it.

The national parks belong to everyone. To the people. To all of us. The government keeps saying so and maybe, in this one case at least, the government is telling the truth. Hard to believe, but possible.

A good book is a kind of paper club, serving to rouse the slumbrous and to silence the obtuse.

Democracy -- rule by the people -- sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America.

Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I've always found the second approach the more pleasing.