Cross Creek

From "Cross Creek", by Marjorie Kinan Rawlings:
“…the consciousness of land and water must lie deeper in the core of us than any knowledge of our fellow beings. We were bred of earth before we were born of our mothers. Once born, we can live without mother or father, or any kin, or any friend, or any human love. We cannot live without the earth or apart from it, and something is shriveled in a man’s heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of man.”
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, from "Cross Creek"