The Baron in the Trees - Italo Calvino

There is the moment when the silence of the countryside gathers in the ear and breaks into a myriad of sounds:a croaking and squeaking, a swift rustle in the grass, a plop in the water, a pattering on earth and pebbles, and high above all, the call of the cicada, The sounds follow one another, and the ear eventually discerns more and more of them--just as fingers unwinding a ball of wool feel each fiber interwoven with progressively thinner and less palpable threads, The frogs continue croaking in the background without changing the flow of sounds, just as light does not vary from the continues winking of stars, But at every rise or fall of the wind every sound changes and is renewed. All that remains in the inner recess of the ear is a vague murmur: the sea.

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It is something that has never left me since that night, the realization of my good fortune in having a bed, clean sheets, a soft mattress! And as that went through my mind, which had been fixed for so many hours and so completely on the person we all had on our minds, I dozed off and so fell asleep.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe

Even devoted surfing cliques like the Pump House Gang--the mysterioso sea and all that!--are easing into The Life, and some move up the beach from the Pump House, away from everlasting sets of goodsurfing waves they used to wait for like Phrygian sacristans, up from the Pump House to the Parking Lot, where they sit in cars with special amethyst-tinted windows and grok in fullness the Pacific sun as it comes through the weird glass and the cops wonder what in hell they're doing in cars all day instead of being on the beach, and they roust them and search the cars and find nothing, but warn--We know you kids are drinking beer out here... Beer!

The Man Who Planted Trees, Jean Giono

"When I reminded myself that all this was the work of the hand and soul of one man, with no mechanical help, it seemed to me that men could be as effective as god in tasks other than destruction."

animation of story
book online [minus pictures]

Big Fish, Daniel Wallace

"You get used to it," he said. "That's what this place is all about, Edward. Getting used to things."
"It's not what I want," he said.
"That, too," he said. "You get used to that, too."

Richard Farina

" Been down so long it looks like up to me."

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

"The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have."