This is how Americans think. You believe that if something terrible happens to someone, they must have deserved it.

Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure.

That was when we smelled the rain. It was so strong it seemed like more than just a smell. When we stretched out our hands we could practically feel it rising up from the ground. I don’t know how a person could ever describe that scent.

My way of finding a place in this world is to write one.

I wonder that religion can live or die on the strength of a faint, stirring breeze. The scent trail shifts, causing the predator to miss the pounce. One god draws in the breath of life and rises; another god expires.

A sound-bite culture can't discuss science very well. Exactly what we're losing when we reduce biodiversity, the causes and consequences of global warming-these traumas can't be adequately summarized in an evening news wrap-up.

I'm not pretending to be ingenuous; I know what I'm doing.