I could only wonder again at the white race's naïveté in always sending forth our worst members as our emissaries.

Then the sun broke above the crest of the hills and the entire countryside looked soaked in blood, the arroyos deep in shadow, the cones of dead volcanoes stark and biscuit-colored against the sky. I could smell pinion trees, wet sage, woodsmoke, cattle in the pastures, and creek water that had melted from snow. I could smell the way the country probably was when it was only a dream in the mind of God.

The system shaves the dice on the side of those with money and power, and anyone who believes otherwise deserves anything that happens to him.

THE ALLURE OF Montana is like a commitment to a narcotic; you can never use it up or get enough of it. Its wilderness areas probably resemble the earth on the first day of creation.

And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.

writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.

Success, like fashion, is a fickle companion and can leave one in the wink of an eye.