Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners ... California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart ... The American identity is an exact and provable thing.

The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.

Father and son are natural enemies and each is happier and more secure in keeping it that way.

We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not.

And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man.

Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers.