“He may have been a trifle wild.”

“You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering away your life on silly trifles.”

“Men be so foolish as to have delight and pleasure in the doubtful glistering of a trifling little stone, which may behold any of the stars or else the sun itself.”

“He may not have been born with guts, but he didn't have to die without them.”

“The sword wears out its sheath, as it is sometimes said. That is my story. My passions have made me live, and my passions have killed me. What passions, it may be asked. Trifles, the most childish things in the world. Yet they affected me as much as if the possessions of Helen, or the throne of the Universe, had been at stake.”

“The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in the Wildness is the preservation of the World.”