“The silence of that time before traffic and leaf blowers and the boisterous shouting of television was embedded in his character […] The noiselessness of his youth except for the natural sound of wind, hoofbeats, the snap of the old house logs splitting in winter cold, wild herons crying their way downriver was forever lost. How silent men and women had been in those times, trusting to observational powers. There had been days when a few little mustache clouds moved, and he could imagine them making no more sound than dragging a feather across a wire. The wind got them and the sky was alone.” – Annie Proulx

Uit: Fine just the way it is, Annie Proulx, Fourth Estate, London, 2009.