Quotes from Gary Paulsen

I ran from the barn out through the herd to make certain and saw that the coyote was really dead, as was the sheep, but I ran smack into what makes border collies the incredible beings that they are. Louise grabbed at the coyote's neck, growling, and having made certain that it was dead, tried to bring the sheep back to life. She pulled at the ewe, trying to lift her to her feet, nudged at her ribs in a kind of crude CPR

There was a slashing, new, impossibly loud crack as lightning seemed to hit the shelter itself and Brian saw the top of the pine next to the opening suddenly explode and felt/saw the bolt come roaring down the tree, burning and splitting and splintering the wood and bark, and he saw it hit Derek.

I have seen their humor and anger expressed in natural terms and learned more about them as dogs and not just extensions of human training.

I got stuck in a toilet.

most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn't work. It wasn't just that it was wrong to do, or that it was considered incorrect. It was more than that—it didn't work. When he sat alone in the darkness and cried and was done, all done with it, nothing had changed.

It was, all in all, a grand example of interspecies lack of cooperation and the further illustration that might makes right. I stayed in the rest area, in my car, for another half an hour, until everything had settled down, and saw who emerged as the victor. The bees kept the water fountain.

and his forehead would slash a pain through his thoughts and he would know it was real

But there's something really nice about spending time with a little kid. You learn so much.

That simple. You lived or you died. And in between the two, if you kept your mind open and aware and listened and smelled and watched... In between you learned. from Northwind

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve 'This Side of Wild' Excerpt

live in sound, always in noise. Perhaps because it is so constant, the art of listening to them falls off, and so many things they say are not heard, are swallowed in the overall

He had done food.

You never beat the game...You go in, take what you need, get out. Never stay too long and never, never try to whip the game. Stay there too long and they figure you out, start chewing at the corners on you, know your betting. Then maybe two, three of them get together and whipsaw you.

He realized that he was not always right, was, indeed, often not right, and at the same time he found that others were not always wrong.

Dad still believes that everything will always work out. I believe that nothing ever happens like you think it will. But both of us know that real life is always a million times better than anything you can imagine.

up. With it came some warmth, small bits of it at first, and with the heat came

I have a friend, he thought—I have a friend now. A hungry friend, but a good one. I have a friend named fire.

hope the tornado hit the moose.

The vast country is still there, but it has somehow been altered by intrusions, peopled to death. It is all gone, all changed, all tamed and pacified and cleaned and boiled and sanitized and made healthy and politically correct.

He had forgotten the most important thing about living in the wilderness, the one thing he'd thought he would never forget—expect the unexpected. What you didn't think would get you, would get you. Plan on the worst and be happy when it didn't come.

We used to have songs for everything, and nobody knows the songs anymore. There were songs for dogs, for good dogs and bad dogs, and songs to make them work or track bear. There were songs for all of everything.

There were so many variables, so many ways to go wrong.

Fifty-four days," Brian said. "Not quite two months. Yes—that's me.

How could he? The