The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

The world is full of burled and gnarly knobs on which you can hang a metaphysical system. If you must.

The hawk's cry is as sharp as its beak.

All dams are ugly, but the Glen Canyon Dam is sinful ugly.

The absurd vanity of metaphysicians who like to imagine that they create the world by thinking about it.

I know my own nation best. That's why I despise it the most. And know and love my own people, too, the swine. I'm a patriot. A dangerous man.

A city man is a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die.