Sophistication" is another word for that inventive mix of tolerance, resilience, and resourcefulness city people develop.

Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug wears better in the long run.

Black bears, though, are not fearsome. I encountered one on the road to my house in Vermont, alone at night. I picked up two stones just in case, but I wasn't afraid of him. I felt a hunter's exhilaration and a brotherly feeling.

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

Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep.

Summer is when we believe, all of a sudden, that if we just walked out the back door and kept on going long enough and far enough we would reach the Rocky Mountains.

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.