No man is wise enough to be another man's master. Each man's as good as the next -- if not a damn sight better.

Art, science, philosophy, religion -- each offers at best only a crude simplification of actual living experience.

The majority of American writers today have chosen passive non-resistance to things as they are, producing sloughs of poetry about their personal angst and anomie, cascades of short stories and rivers of novels obsessed with the nuances of domestic relationships - suburban hanky-panky - chic boutique shopping mall literary soap opera. When they do speak out on matters of controversy they attack not the evils of our time but fellow writers who may insist on complaining.

You cannot reshape human nature without mutilating human beings.

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.

There is beauty, heartbreaking beauty, everywhere.

When a man must be afraid to drink freely from his country's river and streams that country is no longer fit to live in.