Every corny thing that's said about living with nature - being in harmony with the earth, feeling the cycle of the seasons - happens to be true.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.

Id rather have a fake smile than a nasty stare.

You pick up a camera because something has been revealed to you in the landscape or in the human-scape. And you have no choice because it's a gift. And it's like, oh right, I better start doing this!

Now I really feel the landscape, I can be bold and include every tone of pink and blue: it's enchanting, it's delicious, and I hope it will please you.

I believe that most of what was said of God was in reality said of that Spirit whose body is Earth.

None of the guys did anything. We never did anything. I never really got into the workout room until I was about 40 years old. I was pretty strong and I didn't think I needed that much.

I chose Tennessee because I thought theyd give me an opportunity to play.

There are those who travel and those who are going somewhere. They are different and yet they are the same. The successful one has this over his rivals: he knows where he is going.

Momma kept a garden, which sounds romantic to people who have never held a hoe

The English learned, in my view, how to use harmony much earlier than the French or the Italians, or the Germans.