We need wilderness preserved-as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds-because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed.

No life goes past so swiftly as an eventless one, no clock spins like a clock whose days are all alike.

[Friendship] is a relationship that has no formal shape, there are no rules or obligations or bonds as in marriage or the family, it is held together by neither law nor property nor blood, there is no glue in it but mutual liking. It is therefore rare.

It is somethingit can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.

Hard writing makes easy reading.

I balked at nothing, I was above nothing. Everything had something to teach me.

I was shaped by the west and have lived most of my life in it, and nothing would gratify me more than to see it in all its subregions and subcultures both prosperous and environmentally healthy, with a civilization to match its scenery.