“Seabird tracks scattered about the surf's edge like pine needles after a brisk wind.”

“And the needles of the pine trees, freshly washed to a deep, rich green, shimmered with droplets that blinked like clear crystals.”

“He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight.”

“For so long I have lived on the edge of an invisible world. Sometimes I feel like the scattered debris left over after the personality has fallen out of the sky.”

“Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.”

“A pine needle fell in the forest. The hawk saw it. The deer heard it. The white bear smelled it”