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

Man is different from animals in that he speculates, a high-risk activity.

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

Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga - stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.

It's incongruous that the older we get, the more likely we are to turn in the direction of religion. Less vivid and intense ourselves, closer to the grave, we begin to conceive of ourselves as immortal.

There is a time of life somewhere between the sullen fugues of adolescence and the retrenchments of middle age when human nature becomes so absolutely absorbing one wants to be in the city constantly, even at the height of summer.

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.