and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground – because I am afraid –

The past is not a package one can lay away.

But it is growing damp and I must go in. Memory’s fog is rising.

He is a cat, Miss Lancaster. Asking him such questions is an exercise in futility.

Without a little chaos life will be dull, unbeautiful, for we have been trained not to align with simplicity for too long.

You gotta have a body.

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names.

I went camping in the Maasai Mara and we moved site every night. I had no idea how spectacular it would be, how removed from ordinary life, or how many animals we would see.

We never have 100 percent certainty. We never have it. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.

A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed.

The true American patriot is by definition skeptical of the government.

I'd grown up poor; I had no idea what it was like to be comfortable.