I got $30 from Nation magazine for a poem and $500 for my first book of poems.

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.

Sometimes the guy you think is too nice, is just the guy trying his hardest to love you.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.

There isn't a dude outside my dad who had greater influence on my life.

We cannot see what we don't believe.

Everybody expects you to be qualified to talk about your films, but in a way, you're the least qualified person to talk about them. When you're finished, you don't watch them at all.

How can you not love a man banging on the drums? He knows how to keep a rhythm.

I don't think actors ever retire, they just stop being asked to work.

I've always been into looking different.

Every one, more or less, loves Power, yet those who most wish for it are seldom the fittest to be trusted with it.