There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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