I gave my heart to the mountains the minute I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder into foam, smooth to green glass over sunken rocks, shatter to foam again. I was fascinated by how it sped by and yet was always there; its roar shook both the earth and me.

Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?

No one who has studied Western history can cling to the belief that the Nazis invented genocide.

Largeness is a lifelong matter. You grow because you are not content not to. You are like a beaver that chews constantly because if it doesn't, it's teeth grow long and lock. You grow because you are a grower; you're large because you can't stand to be small.

A writer is an organism that will go on writing even after its heart has been cut out.

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

History is not the proper midden for digging up novelties. Perhaps that is one reason why a nation bent on novelty ignores it.