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

Once I climbed into a mountain lion's cage and she bounded at me and put her paw on my face, but she kept her claws withdrawn.

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.

If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking - one sport you shouldn't have to reserve a time and a court for.

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

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

The novelist screws up his courage in order to invest another two or three years in another attempt to float a boat of original design upon an invented ocean.