Public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.

If you live in the same small place long enough, something you don't like is bound to happen

... "You may not see the ocean, but right now we are in the middle of the ocean, and we have to keep swimming.

I do believe that enduring geological features are important, though I don't think I can be clear about exactly why.

That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people.

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.