Going home must be like going to render an account.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.

Everything can be found at sea according to the spirit of your quest.

The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.

You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.

His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain -- why he did not instantly disappear.

We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.