Awareness is becoming acquainted with environment, no matter where one happens to be. Man does not suddenly become aware or infused with wonder; it is something we are born with.

Joys come from simple and natural things: mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water.

Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.

Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons

Without love of the land, conservation lacks meaning or purpose, for only in a deep and inherent feeling for the land can there be dedication in preserving it.

At times on quiet waters one does not speak aloud but only in whispers, for then all noise is sacrilege.

If we can change our priorities, achieve balance and understanding in our roles as human beings in a complex world, the coming era can well be that of a richer civilization, not its end.

As long as there are young men with the light of adventure in their eyes and a touch of wildness in their souls, rapids will be run.

The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a freedom almost forgotten.

It was Indian summer, a bluebird sort of day as we call it in the north, warm and sunny, without a breath of wind; the water was sky-blue, the shores a bank of solid gold.

When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known.

I will not apologise when the shape of my heart offends you.

Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish

She was beautiful and terrifying, savage and pure.

I hoped that it would be possible to slide slowly from my public life back to the life of teaching and writing that I had always wanted. But things didn't work out that way.

This is what sexism does best: it makes you feel crazy for desiring parity and hopeless about ever achieving it.

My parents are wonderful, practical, sensible people, and the expectation was that I would study something academic.

When I started off, I was working in a shed behind my house. All I had was a drill, an electric drill. That was the only machine I had.

I am angry that I starved my brain and that I sat shivering in my bed at night instead of dancing or reading poetry or eating ice cream or kissing a boy.

I'm always the one with the activist friends. I've been an activist very little.

People ask me, 'Did the fame come too fast? Do you ever wish for your old life?' I always tell them that there's nothing on earth better than being famous.