...Attempts at imitation would put the emphasis where it didn't belong. The goal was to improve the lives of others, not oneself.

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

You do the right thing even if it makes you feel bad. The purpose of life is not to be happy but to be worthy of happiness.

Things were here before you and will be here after you're gone. The geographic features, especially, give you a sense of your own place in the world and in time

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia