Quotes from Peter Heller

Human beings, by orders of magnitude, remained the most vicious animal on the planet.

Is it possible to love by simply not being an ass? I don't think so. But it goes a long way to clearing a space where love can happen.

the flies contain the ingenuity and craft of fine jewelry and the promise of hours, days, in pursuit of something even more beautiful: a connection to the beating heart of the living earth and maybe to one's own mastery.

Jack knew that what Lloyd meant was more than a warrior's creed, it was a reminder that we are entrusted with certain souls, and that we are beholden in a broader sense, as people, to take care of others.

He had a few good friends who respected him and would do anything for him. Why did anyone else need to be impressed?

It was the best time of the year. Frost at night and warm, sunny days, when the yellows and oranges of the aspen and cottonwoods did something to the blue of the sky behind them that an artist might never mimic.

I open it so he has no choice. At the crack of the top and the sound of the fizz he winces like one more Coke down, one less in the world.

But I should have known.

Hey where are the old stakes for the beans? Where did we put em? Jasper's ears came up and his mouth opened in his version of a smile. He didn't know. He didn't give a fuck.

It was a frenzy. Everyone clinging to some shred: that they might be the one who was immune. Because we had heard of that, too, the mysterious resistance that ran in families. Genetic.

I lift my head from the pillow I see the frost the moon. Lowering my head I think of home.

And the eagles. They seemed to mark the canoe's progress from the gray spires of dead spruce, spaced downriver like watchmen on some lost frontier...

You know just one cough, he says. That's what they said at the end. Not just through blood. Sharing bodily fluids. I'm not fucking a Mennonite. A cough is a bodily fluid. Land in your eye. Open your mouth to speak.

Late August, a clear night becoming cold. There was no aurora borealis, just the dense sparks of the stars blown from their own ancient fire.

I can blast Son Seals singing Dear Son until the coyotes in the creek raise up a sympathetic sky ripping interpretation of the harmonica solo. Piercing howls and yelps. Sounds like it's killing them and also like they love it. Which when you get right down to it is the blues.

Nothing to lose is so empty, so light, that the sand you crumble to at last blows away in a gust, so insubstantial it's carried upwards to shirr into the sandstorm of the stars. That's where we all get to. The rest is just wearing thin waiting for the wind.

You rest now. Rest for longer than you are used to resting. Make a stillness around you, a field of peace. Your best work, the best time of your life will grow out of this peace. And don't worry, compa, you will be rowdy and out of control again. You will throw off every kind of light. You can't help yourself.

road trip frees the mind, revitalizes the spirit, and infuses the body with Dr Pepper and teriyaki jerky.

I had painted a lot of landscapes, had stood before many while they burned their remote beauty into my skin, but had never done both at the same time. Don't know why. I was comfortable painting indoors and I liked best to retrieve those images from memory where they might be stained by awe and jumbled together with other things I loved. Now that I had tried the other, I wanted to do more.

Was this hell? To love like this, to grieve from fifteen feet, an uncrossable distance?

Fished here, too, the river dropping so fast, the rapids so loud, reverberating off the cliff—you had to be careful as you walked down the railroad tracks to look back often. More than one fisherman never heard or saw the train coming.

She reached across, grabbed my hand. I'm not going anywhere, Hig, she said. Where would I go? Lots of places, I thought but I didn't say anything. To the other side for one. Or way way inside. A lot of places someone else can never follow.

He's a cocky SOB. He knew the Nick Adams Stories. Probably a frustrated English major who graduated from college qualified to drive a cab.

Magical. I mean to watch a person let go of something and flower.