Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. 'Pilgrim's Wilderness' is a story that needed to be told by the only man who could tell it.

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one.

That's what the American odyssey is really about: Leaving home. Leaving home and coming home, and trying to understand the difference.

In the America I see from here, anything is possible - especially the impossible.

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.

Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it.

All beings exist and nothing elseAnd that’s why they’re called beings

If some people say what is in their hearts and other people say what glides easily off the tongue, how can we talk to one another?

The more you think, the more you ruin things. Art has to come viscerally; otherwise, forget it.

It is a sexy country. We are very free with our bodies.

I go into a meditative state but I don't follow a path that people who meditate take, like sitting in a room and getting quiet. It is when I swim that I meditate.

The drama is the looking-glass in which we see the hideousness of vice and the beauties of virtue.

In a lot of close games, I can make a difference with my speed.

Industries do everything they can to enhance the reputations of the industry and their products.

Get out of your own way. Often, we're our own worst enemy when working towards our goals.

There's a reason why young people think what they think. They are taught it. In many cases when they learn at home is erased or countered or overcome.