A writer's work is to witness things.

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.

There aren't many irritations to match the condescension which a woman metes out to a man who she believes has loved her vainly for the past umpteen years.

Men often compete with one another until the day they die. Comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.

True solitude is a din of birdsong, seething leaves, whirling colors, or a clamor of tracks in the snow.

The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.

Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga - stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.

Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep.

Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug wears better in the long run.

If two people are in love they can sleep on the blade of a knife.

Many people have believed that they were Chosen, but none more baldly than the Texans.

The perfect orchestration of the symphony of life is one of the Creator's greatest and most beautiful miracles.

In a world of violence

There is an old saying, or should be, that it is a wise economist who recognizes the scope of his own generalizations.

Sweat, scalded meat, puke, blood, smoke and a dozen kinds of bad ale and wine: the bouquet of civilized nightlife

Women... can't live with 'em... can't shoot 'em.

The creative process obtains in all creative acts. So if I'm painting suddenly I'll see something that I didn't see before.

So I look at a lot of stuff now that I did and some of it looks tame to me, but my interest in terms of what I want to say with it is a little different

The charms of seclusion are seldom combined with the conveniences of civilization.

Oh we'll know each other forever, Bix says. The days of losing touch are almost gone.

I was still in school after I dropped my first solo album.