The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.

Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube; there are some things one would rather have done than do.

War: First day in the U.S. Army, the government placed a Bible in my left hand, a bayonet in the other.

It is not death or dying that is tragic, but rather to have existed without fully participating in life- that is the deepest personal tragedy.

A life without tragedy would not be worth living.

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.

We spend more time working for our labor-saving machines than they do working for us.