rules: no more than one quote or image from each thing

"In New Orleans the wilderness is sensed as very near, not the redemptive wilderness of the western imagination but something rank and old and malevolent, the idea of wilderness not as an escape from civilization and its discontents but a mortal threat to a community precarious and colonial in its deepest aspect." In writing this book, looking back over my greatest periods of upheaval, that’s where all the good stories are. As I’ve gotten older, figured out how to achieve things efficiently and with less risk, gotten good at what I do, the chaos dissipates, and the stories disappear. I’m terrified of my life becoming banal, of running out of the stories, those stories I have that make people laugh, make people incredulous, make them proud of me.