The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chainsaws. It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

Why is it that the destruction of something created by humans is called vandalism, yet the destruction of something created by God is called development?

We live in the kind of world where courage is the most essential of virtues; without courage, the other virtues are useless.

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.

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

The best argument for Christianity is the Gregorian chant. Listening to that music, one can believe anything -- while the music lasts.

A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak.