If I like many photographers, and I do, I account for this by noting a quality they share - animation. They may or may not make a living by photography, but they are alive by it.

You are the Self, that perfect immutable Self. Nothing else exists. Nothing else ever existed. Nothing else will ever exist. There is only one Self and you are That. Rejoice!

Do not allow your thoughts to become greater than you. No matter what your thoughts tell you, don't listen. Remember your thoughts are not your friend. Your thoughts try to confound you, confuse you. And they will tell you all kinds of things. Do not listen to your thoughts, even your good thoughts. Transcend everything, go beyond your thoughts to your bliss, to your joy and to your happiness.

Are there grounds now and then for an unironic smile?

Silence is, after all, the context for the deepest appreciation of art: the only important evaluations are finally, personal, interior ones.

The experience of life that you and I have is pretty much a jigsaw puzzle in the box: Day-to-day experiences of disconnected pieces that don't seem to justify the efforts we make each day.

Landscape pictures can offer us, I think, three verities: geography, autobiography, and metaphor. Geography is, if taken alone, sometimes boring, autobiography is frequently trivial, and metaphor can be dubious. But taken together, as in the best work of people like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, the three kinds of information strengthen each other and reinforce what we all work to keep intact - the affection for life.