Turbulence, like many forms of trouble, cannot always be seen. We bounce so hard my arms sail helplessly above my head. In evolution, wing bones became arms and hands; perhaps I'm de-evolving.

I understood why war zones are called 'theaters' because they frame a kind of play acting or, worse, deceit, that can stain a human life forever: the deceit of hate on hearsay - hating an enemy one doesn't know.

I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.

To trace the history of a river . . . is to trace the history of the soul, the history of the mind descending and arising in the body.

To trace the history of a river or a raindrop is also to trace the history of the soul, the history of the mind descending and arising in the body. In both, we constantly seek and stumble upon divinity, which like feeding the lake, and the spring becoming a waterfall, feeds, spills, falls, and feeds itself all over again.

I like big, open, spare landscapes. There's lots of room. Nobody bothers you... I feel as if I can think there.

What Flaubert refers to as the “mélancholies du voyage” is like the sadness I feel as one season departs and another arrives.