“People left a lot of things behind when they went in the water. Their clothes, their stuff, their makeup, their fixed-up hair, their voices, their hearing, their sight—at least as the normally experienced them.”

“Wilderness and motors are incompatible and the former can best be experienced, understood and enjoyed when the machines are left behind where they belong -- on the superhighways and in the parking lots, on the reservoirs and in the marinas.”

“Do you promise to help me pack up my apartment and get all my stuff? I have a lot of stuff. A lot. Shoes and purses and clothes and nail polish. I have way more purses than you brought and at least a gatrillion dresses. I can't live without them-''I promise to haul your shit around.”

“Shouldn’t you be putting on makeup and curling you hair, doing girly stuff?”“I consider doing you girly stuff.”

“I always felt sorry for humans, spending so much time in front of the mirror. Fixing their hair, makeup, and clothes, mostly to impress others. Did they really see themselves in the mirror? Was it what they wanted to see? Did it make them feel good or bad? And mostly I wondered if they based their self-image on their reflected one.”

“Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.”