My early book learning came to me as naturally as the seasons in … the little town in which I grew up. … Quite early I began to find a special charm in an unpeopled world … of lava rock and sagebrush desert. … I was often more purely happy at such times than I think I have ever been since.

Statement made in 1962, as quoted in the Boise Weekly Vol. 7, No. 39 (8 April 1999)