“Stories do not give instruction, they do not explain how to love a companion or how to find God. They offer, instead, patterns of sound and associations, of event and image. Suspended as listeners ...”

“Over the years, one comes to measure a place, too, not just for the beauty it may give, the balminess of its breezes, the insouciance and relaxation it encourages, the sublime pleasures it offers, ...”

“Up there in that room, as I see it, is the reading and the thinking-through, a theory of rivers, of trees moving, of falling light. Here on the river, as I lurch against a freshening of the current...”

“I could not give up either of these worlds, neither the book I am holding nor the gleaming forest, though I have told you almost nothing of what is said here on these grim pages, from the sentences...”

“It is, I think, the rarest of leisure, hard work mixed with hard pleasure, to refine one's time of deep thought or light regard into the utterly self-absorbed and equally and abundantly outward-see...”

“For so many centuries, the exchange of gifts has held us together. It has made it possible to bridge the abyss where language struggles.”

“Sometimes, insatiable curiosity and compassion are all that life requires of us.”

“Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.”

“If spectacle is lacking in everyday life, it may be because we have forgotten where and how to look.”

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him participate in synchronized diving.”

“A great diving scene. Worth the read just for that:Randy! You have the best eyes for bubbles. Find my missing diver. Paul leaned over the boat and yelled at the people waiting in the water. Hey! Wh...”

“Do not think to swim below. The ocean is already pushing into ears, sinuses, temples, the softness of eyes, and the harpsichord strings behind the kneecaps.”

“Never Give up, never surrender.”

“Several Terminal Policy readers got together to tell Raker jokes: - Raker CAN piss into the wind. - Raker donates a lot of blood to the Red Cross -- just never his own. - Superman wears Raker paj...”

“There was no one alive who did not contribute his share of mystery to the world.”