Somewhere lives a bad Cajun cook, just as somewhere must live one last ivory-billed woodpecker. For me, I don't expect ever to encounter either one.

A true journey, no matter how long the travel takes, has no end.

The biggest hindrance to learning is fear of showing one's self a fool.

For me, writing is not a search for explanations but a ramble in quest of what informs a place, a hunt for equivalents.

What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.

Life doesn't happen along interstates. It's against the law.

Whoever the last true cowboy in America turns out to be, he's likely to be an Indian.