Vermont is a country unto itself.

The older a people grows, the more it absorbs its own landscape and builds to it.

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292

There is, of course, a difference between what one seizes and what one really possesses.

Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident. Get your reward out of writing it, and try to be content with that.

The typhoon came out of the sea first as a deep hollow roar. ... I was surrounded by the madness, the unreason, of uncontrolled, undisciplined energy. None of this made any sense. It was worse than useless - it was nature destroying its own creation - its own self. To create by the long process of growth and then to destroy by a fit of wild emotion - was this not madness, was this not unreason?