To relive the relationship between owner and slave we can consider how we treat our cars and dogs - a dog exercising a somewhat similar leverage on our mercies and an automobile being comparable in value to a slave in those days

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.

A writer's work is to witness things.

There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and smile.

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

To live is to see, and traveling sometimes speeds up the process.

There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.