A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak.

The ready availability of suicide, like sex and alcohol, is one of life's basic consolations.

I thought of the wilderness we had left behind us, open to sea and sky, joyous in its plenitude and simplicity, perfect yet vulnerable, unaware of what is coming, defended by nothing, guarded by no one.

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

Humility is a virtue when you have no other.

The basic science is not physics or mathematics but biology -- the study of life. We must learn to think both logically and bio-logically.

There is a wine called Easy Days and Mellow Nights, well-known on the outskirts of the Navajo reservation. It is an economical wine, fortified with the best of intentions, and I recommend it to every serious wino.