I do not believe in personal immortality; it seems so unnecessary. Show me one man who deserves to live forever.

It seems clear at last that our love for the natural world-Nature-is the only means by which we can requite God's obvious love for it.

All serious writers want the obvious rewards: fame, money, women, love -- and most of all, an audience!

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.

Fence straddlers have no balls. In compensation, however, they enjoy a comfortable seat and can retreat swiftly, when danger threatens, to either side of the fence. There is something to be said for every position.

Poetry -- even bad poetry -- may be our final hope.

Readers, not critics, are the people who determine a book's eventual fate.