To die alone, on rock under sun at the brink of the unknown, like a wolf, like a great bird, seems to me very good fortune indeed.

I always wanted to be a cowboy. But alas! I was burdened early with certain inescapable obligations to world literature.

Running the big rapids is like sex: half the fun lies in the anticipation. Two thirds of the thrill with the approach. The remainder is only ecstasy-or darkness.

In the end, for all our differences and conflicts, most women and men share the same food, work, shelter, bed, life, joy, anguish, and fate. We need each other.

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

As Mark Twain said, 'I love Wagner -- if only they'd cut out all that damned singing!'

One thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly sow and her cub is getting between a businessman and a dollar bill.