In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.

His work in his various roles reflects an immersion in both Buddhist spirituality and nature. For many years Snyder served as a faculty member at the University of California Davis and he also served for a time on the California Arts Council. Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.