“Because life is robust,Because life is bigger than equations, stronger than money, stronger than guns and poison and bad zoning policy, stronger than capitalism,Because Mother Nature bats last, and...”

“I grew up in a utopia, I did. California when I was a child was a child's paradise, I was healthy, well fed, well clothed, well housed. I went to school and there were libraries with all the world ...”

“The word of God came down to man as rain to soil, and the result was mud, not clear water. (Bistami) Pg. 128”

“A thug. In peacetime Fitch would be hanging around a pool table giving the cops trouble. He was perfect for war. Tibbets had chosen his men well - most of them, anyway. Moving back past Haddock Jan...”

“The vaunted experience of age was perhaps only a matter of wounds and scarring -- that young minds to old minds might be as young bodies to old bodies: stronger, more vital, less twisted by damage.”

“The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time”

“God can use the jawbone of an ass!”

“Honest, open communication is the only street that leads us into the real world... We then begin to grow as never before. And once we are on this road, happiness cannot be far away.”

“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. ...”

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”