One of the things I like best about animals in the wild is that they're always off on some errand. They have appointments to keep. It's only we humans who wonder what we're here for.

... love is an act of sedition, a revolt against reason, an uprising in the body politic, a private mutiny.

For the longest time I didn't realize I was creative - I just thought I was strange.

I consider fiction a very high-class form of lying. I enjoy and admire it enormously, but I don't think I'm very good at it.

What a lonely species we are, searching for signals of life from other galaxies, adopting companion animals, visiting parks and zoos to commune with other beasts. In the process, we discover our shared identity.

Which is crueler, an old man's lost memories of a life lived, or a young man's lost memories of the life he meant to live?

Love is the most important thing in our lives, a passion for which we would fight or die, and yet we're reluctant to linger over its names. Without a supple vocabulary, we can't even talk or think about it directly.