Proust again: One can only wish that a man with such powers of total recall had led a less tedious life, moved among somewhat livelier circles.

Lightning streaks like gunfire through the clouds, volleys of thunder shake the air.

Reincarnation? There is such a thing. What could be more Mozartian than the Nutcracker Suite?

What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.

Recorded history is largely an account of the crimes and disasters committed by banal little men at the levers of imperial machines.

We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire—a crackpot machine—that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate. We are, most of us, dependent employees. …Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American.