The thing about nature is that each species does what it’s best at. That’s why it’s all so locked together. I’m certain that at its center is some kind of peace or unity or harmony – the white light people speak of having when they come back from “the dead.” And what does our species do best? We construct artificial systems wherein we are mighty predators, or mighty thinkers, or sagacious, benevolent rulers of the universe – allies with God even.

We try and map boundaries, and to string fence – we try to set up a border between life and death, between man and nature, and complicity versus innocence. But the truth is, there is no complicity, there is no innocence; and there is no death, there is only life.

I don’t think I’m a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I’ve been working on it a long time, and it’s not getting much better.

His errors and failures have not traveled the same distance as his successes.

The natural world is the only one we have. To try to not see the natural world – to put on blinders and avoid seeing it – would for me seem like a form of madness. I’m also interested in the way landscape shapes individuals and populations, and from that, cultures.

I think the idea of holing up and hunkering down against the larger forces of the world has not lost its allure since Thoreau’s time. If anything that instinct, or impulse, continues to reside in almost all of us, sometimes activated or bestirred and other times dormant but always present.

To not pursue the thing one wants would be a waste of one’s life.

There’s the slightly intoxicating feeling that accompanies the largest blizzards – the realization that there’s a chance, increasing by every second, that you are about to be trapped by beauty.

Ceremony. When we’ve lost that, we’ve lost everything, and are only wandering in the dark, like chickens or lambs waiting for eagles.

When you sign on to be an activist in northwest Montana, people in the grocery store will avoid eye contact, particularly if they’re hanging out with outspoken opponents to your views.