He stood there a moment, listened to the creek, and let the mountain air blow against his face. Even with all this heartache, it was beautiful here.

A boy trying out a man's language.

It was as if she had reached into her own pocket and discovered a small pebble, as hard as a diamond, that she had forgotten belonged to her.

Then he returned to Mabel and put his mouth to her ear. I'd never let anything happen to you. You know that, don't you?

Why was it always the woman's fate to pace and fret and wait?

There's been a lot to get used to here." Esther laughed. "Isn't that the truth. I don't know if you ever get used to it really. It just gets in your blood so that you can't stand to be anywhere else.

People are secretive when they have secrets.

The concept of architecture as analogous to landscape is something that has interested me for a long time.

I'm used to writing songs and songs-I can fill em up with symbolism and metaphors. When you write a book (Chronicles, Vol. 1), you gotta tell the truth, and it can't be misinterpreted.

When a black person has no electricity, no water, they call it the ghetto. When white people have no electricity and no water, they call it camping.

The eternal struggle in the law between constancy and change is largely a struggle between history and reason, between past reason and present needs.

I haven't tucked a sock in my pants for three years.

Never mistake activity for achievement.

Carrying the past in to the present, we program the future to continue the past. Letting go the past in the present, we free the future to be something else.

Belief is a deception you play upon yourself.

People always talk about good, fresh country air, but I kept getting wiffs of something that was neither good nor fresh but definitely country.