That dark laboratory we call the soil.

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

Land is not merely soil, it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants and animals.

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left.

There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot.

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?

There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than one rooted in pavements.

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

The first law of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts

To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.

Better to do planning, Rather than being planned.

He had a bad habit of initially zeroing in on one or two things he liked about every new girl he found himself interested in, as if to justify his attraction.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

My mother and I parting company at four years old is a recurring theme; although it's not symbolically necessarily present, it's present in all my relationships.

I know very well what I am about and that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution - and often no doubt from over anxiety about them.

I love songs that people can dance to and enjoy at the same time.

He does not write at all whose poems no man reads

What is the difference between a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Theology? One prescribes drugs, while the other might as well be on drugs.

we walk the plank with strangers.

For a person whose sole burning ambition is to write - like myself - college is useless beyond the Sophomore year.