We guard them. We punish them if we recover them. We chain them. And still they seek their freedom. - James A. Michener

At times, working in big cities far from nature, I have been sick with nesomania, and I think the reason is this: On the islands one has both the time and the inclination to communicate with the stars and the trees and the waves drifting ashore, one lives more intensely.

In 1948 I addressed some students at Washington and Lee University, and in the question-answer period one young man observed with asperity, "But it's easy for you to write. You've traveled."

Again and again he pleaded with his listeners to be generous, and the joke was circulated through Safed: “Rabbi Zaki wants more than anything else in the world to give things away … especially his daughters.