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

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.

We New Yorkers see more death and violence than most soldiers do, grow a thick chitin on our backs, grimace like a rat and learn to do a disappearing act. Long ago we outgrew the need to be blowhards about our masculinity; we leave that to the Alaskans and Texans, who have more time for it.

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

Our loneliness makes us avid column readers these days.

Many people have believed that they were Chosen, but none more baldly than the Texans.

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.