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1 " If the shrike did not eat the grasshoppers, then the grasshoppers would eat all the grass, and there would be none left for the deer...and the deer are food for the tiger. Life in the jungle is a giant spiderweb; if you touch one strand, it will vibrate at the other end. We cannot separate nature into good and bad, Rita. The gods do not will it so. "
2 " Grandpa would go for strolls alone through the pastures where meadowlarks and grasshoppers flew like broken-winged birds, where rabbits constructed their havens, and where thick-coated coyotes and red-tailed foxes sniffed and searched them out. "
3 " You do not want to live in a country ruled by people who never have any doubts. To have doubts is human. A horse has no doubts, a grasshopper has no doubts, an ant has no doubts. But a human being stops to think sometimes, and when he thinks, he hears a voice asking quietly, 'Are you certain that you are right? You must be certain before you pull that trigger. You must be certain before you put your knife to that man's throat.'Would God have given us the power to question if he wanted us to behave like grasshoppers and ants? I am sure God takes pleasure in all the creatures of the world, but I am also sure that his greatest pleasure is a human being who puts his knife away because he is not sure, because a doubt has come into his mind. "
4 " Mr. Edwards admired the well-built, pleasant house and heartily enjoyed the good dinner. But he said he was going on West with the train when it pulled out. Pa could not persuade him to stay longer." I'm aiming to go far West in the spring," he said. " This here, country, it's too settled up for me. The politicians are a-swarming in already, and ma'am if'n there's any worse pest than grasshoppers it surely is politicians. Why, they'll tax the lining out'n a man's pockets to keep up these here county-seat towns..." " Feller come along and taxed me last summer. Told me I got to put in every last thing I had. So I put in Tom and Jerry, my horses, at fifty dollars apiece, and my oxen yoke, Buck and Bright, I put in at fifty, and my cow at thirty five.'Is that all you got?' he says. Well I told him I'd put in five children I reckoned was worth a dollar apiece.'Is that all?' he says. 'How about your wife?' he says.'By Mighty!' I says to him. 'She says I don't own her and I don't aim to pay no taxes on her,' I says. And I didn't. "
