"I can't say, over the miles, that I had learned what I had wanted to know because I hadn't known what I wanted to know. But I did learn what I didn't know I wanted to know."

“NPR interview with William Least Heat-Moon by Tom Ashbrook, On Point”

“Booknotes interview with Least Heat-Moon on River-Horse: A Voyage Across America”

“Real Audio interviews with William Least Heat-Moon by Don Swaim”

“What is it in man that for a long while lies unknown and unseen only one day to emerge and push him into a new land of the eye, a new region of the mind, a place he has never dreamed of? Maybe it's like the force in spores lying quietly under asphalt until the day they push a soft, bulbous mushroom head right through the pavement. There's nothing you can do to stop it.”

“In a land of quince jelly, apple butter, apricot jam, blueberry preserves, pear conserves, and lemon marmalade, you always get grape jelly.”

“Other than to amuse himself, why should a man pretend to know where he's going or understand what he sees?”