But in the desert, in the pure clean atmosphere, in the silence,
there you can find yourself.
Father Dioscuros 

"Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light."
Joyce Carol Oates

We passed the great arid deserts of the West, driving through canyons and beneath rocky outcroppings and over great crevasses. We drove through the Mojave Desert, Owens Valley and Death Valley, and the dust entered our bloodstream and flowed through to every part of our body. The West was both eerie and breathtakingly beautiful, and we wanted to live there forever.
Karl Wiggins – Wrong Planet - Searching for Your Tribe

The desert could not be claimed or owned – it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names.

Frank Herbert