In writing, fidelity to fact leads eventually to the poetry of truth.

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.

The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous.

Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.

Fate and family put me in charge of this city. I will run it my way.

I fall asleep with the sound of her voice echoing in my head, and a feeling in my chest like someone is scooping my heart out with a spoon.

The various features and aspects of human life, such as longevity, good health, success, happiness, and so forth, which we consider desirable, are all dependent on kindness and a good heart.

The people who excel in any field are people who realize that the moment is there to be seized-that there are opportunities at every turn. They are more alive to the moment.

You get what you're good enough to take.

All sects seem to me to be right in what they assert, and wrong in what they deny.

Good impulses are naught, unless they become good actions.

Thinking that other people might be better than you is what makes you Canadian, not American.

It's what every writer needs: a daybed.

You can measure a man's character by the choices he makes under pressure.