Nobody is ever convinced by argument, anyway. They just think up new reasons for maintaining old positions and become more defensive. - Louis L'Amour

Hardy had learned in a hard school, where the tests are given by savage Indians, by bitter cold, by hunger. These were tests where the result was not just a bad mark if one failed. The result was a starved or frozen body somewhere, forgotten in the wilderness.

There was something her father had said. “We do not own the land, Angie. We hold it in trust for tomorrow. We take our living from it, but we must leave it rich for your son and for his sons and for all of those who shall follow.

You stick your finger in the water and you pull it out, and that is how much of a hole you leave when you're gone.