“I've always felt there is something sacred in a piece of paper that travels the earth from hand to hand, head to head, heart to heart.”

“That kind of walk is nice when it happens, but I'll take four minutes now and then over being butt-stapled to a chair all day long.”

“when that small Siberian bird fell out of the sky over Gray's River, not once but twice, he brought with him the sweetness of chance in any place, the certainty of wonder in all places. And if that's not grace, I don't know what it.”

“still other winters average their rain months into a long, cold season of relentless sog and little color. At such times, looking out through the spattered glass, I feel, deep in some spongy, unignorable organ, that we will have floods, and damage, and losses; we will have gray till the cows come home, and there will be no more cows--they'll all just rot, drown, or simply wash away. We will have rain until the very hills dissolve. And when the dirty cotton swaddling of fog finally falls away, we will all be desperate for vital signs.”

“the crushed carcasses of slugs and frogs mixing with the Cretaceous carbons of tar give the road an organic glaze.”

“It is the gift of stories that most repays life among settled people.”

“This sort of day makes indoor work seem shameful. So working outside, whether in the garden or the woods or on the front porch..., is a sacrament.”