I have watched the river and the sea for a lifetime. I have seen rivers rob soil from the roots of trees until the giants came foundering down. I have watched shores slip and perish, the channels silt and change; what was beach become a swamp and a headland tumble into the sea. An island has eroded in silent pain since my boyhood, and reefs have become islands. Yet the old people used to say, People pass away, but not the land. It remains forever. Maybe that is so. The land changes. The land continues. The sea changes. The sea remains.

The smarter you are, the more you know, the less reason you have to trust or love or confide.

I am exceedingly angry for no good reason.

You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read.

The company you keep at death is, of all things, most dependent on chance.

But hands are sacred things. Touch is personal, fingers of love, feelers of blind eyes, tongues of those who cannot talk.

It's the possibility that when you're dead you might still go on hurting that bothers me.