Wherever we go we do harm, forgiving ourselves as wheels do cement for wearing each other out. We set this house on fire, forgetting that we live within. (from "To a Meadowlark," for M.L. Smoker)

Barring love I'll take my life in large doses alone--rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.

I like grit, I like love and death, I'm tired of irony. ... A lot of good fiction is sentimental. ... The novelist who refuses sentiment refuses the full spectrum of human behavior, and then he just dries up. ... I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.

You touch things lightly or deeply; you move along because life herself moves, and you can’t stop it.

Nothing on my trip thus far was as I expected which shows you that rather than simply read about the United States you have to log the journey.

That's my only defense against this world: to build a sentence out of it.

It is utterly soothing to fly fish for trout. All other considerations or worries drift away and you couldn't keep them close if you wanted. Perhaps it's standing thigh deep in a river with the water passing at the exact but varying speed of life. You easily recognize this mortality and it dissipates into the landscape.