I had discovered a terrible vulnerability I myself which I think of not as cowardliness but as an ability to imagine too much.

One of finest evocations of life in Western America in recent memory... Powerful and profoundly moving.

In a story, nothing is real until it is acted upon.

Our old pilgrims believed stories in which the West was a promise, a place where decent people could escape the wreckage of failed lives and start over. Come along, the dream whispers, and you can have another chance. We still listen to promises in the wind. This time, we think, we’ll get it right.

I had discovered a terrible vulnerability I myself which I think of not as cowardliness but as an ability to imagine too much.

Up there on Huckleberry Mountain, I couldn't sleep ... As the sky broke light over the peaks of Glacier, I found myself deeply moved by the view from our elevation - off west the lights of Montana, Hungry Horse, and Columbia Falls, and farmsteads along the northern edge of Flathead Lake, and back in the direction of sunrise the soft and misted valleys of the parklands, not an electric light showing: little enough to preserve for the wanderings of a great and sacred animal who can teach us, if nothing else, by his power and his dilemma, a little common humility.

They knew bullshit, and they knew about the ruling class; dying for a ruling class cause was almost always bullshit.