When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep. Nay, and when I walk alone in a beautiful Orchard, if my Thoughts are some part of the Time taken up with strange Occurrences, I some part of the Time call them back again to my Walk, or to the Orchard, to the Sweetness of the Solitude, and to my self. – Michel de Montaigne, “Of Experience,” translated from French by Charles Cotton

What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death. – Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain