One can imagine a sane, healthy, cheerful human society based on no more than the principles of common sense, as validated each day by work, play, and living experience. But this remains the most utopian and fantastic of ideals.

Any hack can safely rail away at foreign powers beyond the sea; but a good writer is a critic of the society he lives in.

Our contemporary Tories prefer the term 'ordered liberty' to 'freedom'. The word 'freedom' scares them; it has too much of a paleolithic ring to it.

Grand opera is a form of musical entertainment for people who hate music.

Cold morning on Aztec Peak Fire Lookout. First, build fire in old stove. Second, start coffee. Then, heat up last night's pork chops and spinach for breakfast. Why not? And why the hell not?

The canyon country does not always inspire love. To many it appears barren, hostile, repellent - a fearsome mostly waterless land of rock and heat, sand dunes and quicksand, cactus, thornbrush, scorpion, rattlesnake, and agaraphobic distances. To those who see our land in that manner, the best reply is, yes, you are right, it is a dangerous and terrible place. Enter at your own risk. Carry water. Avoid the noonday sun. Try to ignore the vultures. Pray frequently.

My own ambition, my deepest and truest ambition, is to find within myself someday, somehow, the ability to do likewise, to do NOTHING - and find it enough.