Islands are reminders of arrivals and departures.

Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are.

Autumn teaches us that fruition is also death; that ripeness is a form of decay. The willows, having stood for so long near water, begin to rust. Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons.

Love life first, then march through the gates of each season; go inside nature and develop the discipline to stop destructive behavior; learn tenderness toward experience, then make decisions based on creating biological wealth that includes all people, animals, cultures, currencies, languages, and the living things as yet undiscovered; listen to the truth the land will tell you; act accordingly.

Perhaps despair is the only human sin.

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

Animals give us their constant, unjaded faces, and we burden them with our bodies and civilized ordeals.