Quotes from Edward Hoagland

There were periods during my childhood when I stammered so badly I couldn't talk at all.

Like a kick in the butt, the force of events wakes slumberous talents.

Man is different from animals in that he speculates, a high-risk activity.

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.

Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep

The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.

If a person sings quietly to himself on the street people smile with approval; but if he talks it's not alright; they think he's crazy. The singer is presumed to be happy and the talker unhappy.

Men often compete with one another until the day they die. Comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.

Country people do not behave as if they think life is short; they live on the principle that it is long, and savor variations of the kind best appreciated if most days are the same.

Many people have believed that they were Chosen, but none more baldly than the Texans.

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.

Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga -- stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.

Animals used to provide a lowlife way to kill and get away with it, as they do still, but, more intriguingly, for some people they are an aperture through which wounds drain. The scapegoat of olden times, driven off for the bystanders sins, has become a tender thing, a running injury. There, running away is me: hurt it and you are hurting me.

City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind's eye the notion of a better life ahead.

Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to shatter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again.

Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug wears better in the long run.

The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.

There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from the equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and manage a smile.

To relive the relationship between owner and slave we can consider how we treat our cars and dogs -- a dog exercising a somewhat similar leverage on our mercies and an automobile being comparable in value to a slave in those days.

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.

True solitude is a din of birdsong, seething leaves, whirling colors, or a clamor of tracks in the snow

We have in America "The Big Two-Hearted River" tradition: taking your wounds to the wilderness for a cure, a conversation, a rest, whatever. And as is in the Hemingway story, if your wounds aren't too bad, it works. But this isn't Michigan (or Faulkner's Big Woods in Mississippi for that matter). This is Alaska.

Did you have to understand life to plunge in? Even kindness, when he encountered it, was a riddle half the time. If you walked into a door and bloodied your nose, it was one thing, but empathy for handicaps had never been his thing when he himself had none. Empathy had been for people of good cheer.

I'd like a break. I'm forty-six, so the undertow is beginning to get to me." "Then what are you good for?" she asked, in a kind tone. "Oh, a man around the house has his uses. A dildo; an ear to talk to; two arms around you; a voice from the next room when you're lonesome." "I have a dog to talk to." "That might be a deal killer.