Islands are reminders of arrivals and departures.

To rise above treeline is to go above thought, and after, the descent back into bird song, bog orchids, willows, and firs is to sink into the preliterate parts of ourselves.

Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are.

To trace the history of a river . . . is to trace the history of the soul, the history of the mind descending and arising in the body.

A tree is a thought, an obstruction stopping the flow of wind and light, trapping water, housing insects, birds, and animals, and breathing in and out. How treelike the human, how human the tree.

Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are. We are often like rivers: careless and forceful, timid and dangerous, lucid and muddied, eddying, gleaming, still.

I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.

I like big, open, spare landscapes. There's lots of room. Nobody bothers you... I feel as if I can think there.

Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons.

Honesty is stronger medicine than sympathy, which may console but often conceals.

Finally, the lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.

True art is a remedy of curiousity and it rise above all expectations.

My walk on the moon lasted three days. My walk with God will last forever.

I don't like things held up before me that I cannot have.

To me the most important thing is getting into a studio and making an album that is 12 or 14 amazing songs, getting up onstage, and making people happy by livening the rock.

Any goal worth achieving involves an element of risk.

Satisfy a few to please many is bad.

It's amazing how many people even today use a computer to do something you can do with a pencil and paper in less time.

Th aspirer, once attaind unto the top, Cuts off those means by which himself got up.

Ship small art. Then, ship medium art. Then, ship world-changing, scary, change-your-underwear art.

I urge North Koreas leaders to reflect on Burmas experience. While the work of reform is ongoing, Burma has already broken out of isolation and opened the door to a far better future for its people.