No birdcall is the musical equal of a clarinet blown with panache.

A writer's work is to witness things.

Indeed, if "biology is chemistry with history," as somebody has said, then nature writing is biology with love.

Country people tend to consider that they have a corner on righteousness and to distrust most manifestations of cleverness, while people in the city are leery of righteousness but ascribe to themselves all manner of cleverness.

It would be hard to define chaos better than as a world where children decide they don't want to live.

True solitude is a din of birdsong, seething leaves, whirling colors, or a clamor of tracks in the snow.

Country people do not behave as if they think life is short; they live on the principle that it is long, and savor variations of the kind best appreciated if most days are the same.