I'd rather get a brain tumor than go back to teaching.

The simple act of opening a bottle of wine has brought more happiness to the human race than all the collective governments in the history of earth

Barring love I'll take my life in large doses alone--rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.

The wilderness does not make you forget your normal life so much as it removes the distractions for proper remembering.

The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.

Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends.

In a life properly lived, you're a river.

Beware, O wanderer, the road is walking too.

Death steals everything except our stories.

Fishing makes us less the hostages to the horrors of making a living.

I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.

There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.

It's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament.

Then he gave me a sweet kiss as if I was his one and only lover.

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.

Our actual Friends are but distant relations of those to whom we are pledged.

Huck Finn. Loss of identity drives people to nostalgia. Electronic man has no physical body, so he [Jimmy Carter] puts nostalgia in its place.

I learned that books could be collected, that they were important enough to keep and that a story that seemed to be over could be part of a bigger one.

Information is not power. Power is power. But what turns information into power is action.

Sports Illustrated is very serious about their covers. They'll never say, like, 'Oh you got it.'

I dont know whos left to hear us. But if there are people who want the real thing, weve got it. My band rocks, and I plan to keep doing it till nobody shows up to see it anymore.