“They are not even faintly shy. They are everywhere, in treetops and on the ground. Their song reminds me of a child’s neighborhood rallying cry — ee-ock-ee — with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that is especially endearing. The  towhee had the brass and grace to call, simply and clearly, “tweet.” I know of no other bird that stoops to literal tweeting”(Dillard 252).

“A kind of nothing is what I wish to accomplish, a singleminded trek towards that place where ant shutter left open to the zenith at night will record the wheeling of all the sky’s stars as a pattern of perfect, concentric circles. I seek a reduction, a shedding, a sloughing off”(Dillard 255).

“But to me the most mysterious thing about the universe is not its comprehensibility but the fact that it exists. And the same mystery attaches to everything within it. The world is permeated through and through by mystery. By the incomprehensible… But this knowledge adds not much to our understanding of things. “Knowledge is power,”… But power does not lead to wisdom, even less to understanding… This blather about mystery is probably no more than a confession of intellectual laziness”(Abbey 51).

“I respect vultures myself, even like them, I guess, in a way, and fully expect someday to join them, internally at least. One should plan one’s reincarnation with care. I like especially the idea of floating among the clouds all day, seldom stirring a feather, meditating in whatever it is that vultures meditate about. It looks like a good life, from down here” (Abbey 53).