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

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

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.

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

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

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.