“Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience; to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon it. He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of the moon and the colors of the dawn and dusk.”

“He used both hands when he made the bear. Imagine a bear proceeding from the hands of God.”

“There was a man who killed a buffalo bull to no purpose, only he wanted the blood on his hands.”

“The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has alreadyaccomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.”

“In the white man's world, language, too -- and the way which the white man thinks of it--has undergone a process of change. The white man takes such things as words and literatures for granted, as indeed he must, for nothing in his world is so commonplace. On every side of him there are words by the millions, an unending succession of pamphlets and papers, letters and books, bills and bulletins, commentaries and conversations. He has diluted and multiplied the Word, and words have begun to close in on him. He is sated and insensitive; his regard for language -- for the Word itself -- as an instrument of creation has diminished nearly to the point of no return. It may be that he will perish by the Word.”

“To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion.”

“Polite applause punctuated the end of the clockmaker's speech. But Passion continued to stare. Herwords came before she thought to hold them back. "Your profile ought to be pressed upon a coin."He bent his blue gaze upon her. "Your body ought to be pressed upon mine.”