There are two kinds of writers: hustlers and sanctimonious hustlers.

Suicidal thinking, if serious, can be a kind of death scare, comparable to suffering a heart attack or undergoing a cancer operation. One survives such a phase both warier and chastened. When-ten years ago-I emerged from a bad dip into suicidal speculation, I felt utterly exhausted and yet quite fearless of ordinary dangers, vastly afraid of myself but much less scared of extraneous eventualities.

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

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.

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

Men often compete with one another until the day they die. Comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.

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