“The best things aren't perfectly constructed. They aren't illusions. they aren't larger than life. They are life.”

“There are still Ava Maddoxes to find and sets to create and girls to kiss and colleges to attend. It's possible that someday I will hear a patsy Cline song and the heartbreak will barely register. ...”

“I was so blinded by her talent that I didn't recognize the tremendous pain behind her work. She gave me hundreds of images, so many chances to see that she was in trouble. I failed her.”

“I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. Y...”

“People take one another for granted”

“And then we get new homes that we make for ourselves.”

“Scenery is fine -but human nature is finer”

“As for me, I have a choice between honoring that dark life I've seen so many years moving in the junipers, or of walking away and going on with my own human busyness. There is always that choice fo...”

“Nature allows one kind to kill another, it's part of the law ... you wonder if man might not be the most savage of all creatures. He's among the few that preys on nearly every other being, that con...”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”