The toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.

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.

The Mississippi and its paddle boats, and the rivers of Bengal and their gleaming steamers evoked a similar atmosphere of romance, of long, song-filled voyages, high winds and lonely sunsets.

If the Negroes are to remain forever removed from the producing atmosphere, and the present discrimination continues, there will be nothing left for them to do.

Sent off, carried off, but never backed off.

What is certain is that plurality and diversity are not, and never can be, a natural 'byproduct' of unregulated market forces.

Our choice is between cynicism and hope.

Fear is like the wilderland - Stepping stones or sinking sand

I love the cowbell. I think it's awesome. My family got the cowbell app on their iPhones. It's a classic part of ski racing.

The word education must not be understood in the sense of teaching but of assisting the psychological development of the child.

In the beginning was the word, and it was spoken.

Whatever you're thinking, think bigger.