Without the errors, wrong turns and blind alleys, without the doubling back and misdirection and fumbling and chance discoveries, there was not one bit of joy in walking the labyrinth.

Somewhere lives a bad Cajun cook, just as somewhere must live one last ivory-billed woodpecker. For me, I don't expect ever to encounter either one.

Be careful going in search of adventure - it's ridiculously easy to find.

Instead of insight, maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while.

Beware thoughts that come in the night.

...who can say where a voyage starts - not the the actual passage but the dream of a journey and its urge to find a way?

A true journey, no matter how long the travel takes, has no end.

On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing.

The biggest hindrance to learning is fear of showing one's self a fool.

I can't say, over the miles, that I had learned what I had wanted to know because I hadn't known what I wanted to know. But I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know.

Get out and find ...the country. And ourselves.

There's no need to curse God if you're an ugly duckling. He chooses those strong enough to endure it so that they can guide others who've felt the same.

In the new faith, there is only one commandment. It is this commandment, and this commandment alone, that must be followed to end the times of suffering, which are soon to come. FORSAKE USURY.

Any religion that cannot stand up to a modern scientific reasoning, and to rational proof, is asinine

I know some words floated through my ears, but my mind refused to absorb their meaning. I just shook my head slowly as the wall of pain washed over me, leaving me submerged and broken in the flood.

Reconciliation is more beautiful than victory.

My father was my teacher. But most importantly he was a great dad.

And very often the influence exerted on a person's character by the amount of his income is hardly less, if it is less, than that exerted by the way in which it is earned.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

To be vested with enormous authority is a fine thing; but to have the on-looking world consent to it is finer.

The plants which stand next to dwarf trees in importance with the Chinese are certainly chrysanthemums, which they manage extremely well, perhaps better than they do any other plant.