Is it possible to grow wiser without knowing it? One hopes so. We all hope so.

I am happy to be a regional writer. My region is the American West, old Mexico, West Virginia, New York, Europe, Australia, the human heart, and the male groin.

The world is older and bigger than we are. This is a hard truth for some folks to swallow.

A society that feels itself too poor to afford the preservation of wilderness is not worthy of the name civilization.

The rebel is doomed to a violent death. The rest of us can look forward to sedated expiration in a coma inside an oxygen tent, with tubes inserted in every bodily orifice.

Say what you like about my bloody murderous government,' I says, 'but don't insult me poor bleedin' country.

The moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home: to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own government, his own culture. The more freedom the writer possesses, the greater the moral obligation to play the role of critic.