I've always traveled. I'm a professor in a limited way. I teach one class two quarters out of four, so I get traveling done.

There was something about the prairie for me—it wasn’t where I had come from, but when I moved there it just took me in and I knew I couldn’t ever stop living under that big sky.

Sometimes I'm writing for magazines on assignment, but the university has to be patient with me. I mean, during the ten-week periods that I have a class, I'm there every Thursday night or whatever it is, but sometimes that's all I'm there, because I'm somewhere else the rest of the time.

It would have been so perfectly ironic if I had been killed by the dog, because I was petting a dog who was not used to being pet, because I think I'm some kind of dog whisperer, and I think I can make any dog love me.

I'm always out looking for weird, beautiful things.

The Universe has a plan to make sure we don't ever stop learning, not only in our minds, but also in our hearts.

When I was a little kid, I used to walk miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of railroad tracks.