“I began to hitchhike in something akin to geological time: slow, ancient, vast.”

“I think ‘slow writing’ is the answer when the feeling of burn out threatens, something akin to the ‘slow food’ movement. Anxiety and panic are counterproductive to the creative process.”

“Geologic time includes now.”

“Too much time alone had done something peculiar to his heart: A confused and unreliable organ at best, it now held something akin to joy.”

“I went into geology because I like being outdoors, and because everybody in geology seemed, well, they all seemed like free spirits or renegades or something. You know, climbing mountains and hiking deserts and stuff.”

“With me, something different and deep, in bright focus and pointing the way, arrived in the practice of hitchhiking. I am the spirit and the heart of hitchhiking, I am its cortex and its medulla, I am its foundation and its culmination, I am the jewel in its lotus.”