“The language of a river inscribesover eyes of moths and fliesthe navel of the land is a lake.”

“She has that quality, does the Hudson, as I imagine all great rivers do: the deep, abiding sense that those activities what take place on shore among human beings are of the moment, passing, and aren’t the stories by way of which the greater tale of this planet will, in the end, be told.”

“The other day, when I was deciding where to place a mountain range, how to make a river’s flow detour around underground stalactite caves, and what precise color to give the sky at sunset, I realized I was God… or an artist and a writer.”

“A single poem, alonecan turn tidesscatter galaxiesand burst forth with riversfrom paradise.”

“There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.”

“Camomille: Fallible men write books. God writes in sunlight and rivers and planets. Isn’t the Universe a good book? I trust it above the printed kind.”