Our sense of safety depends on predictability, so anything living outside the usual rules we suspect to be an outlaw, a ghoul.

Love is the great intangible. ... Frantic and serene, vigilant and calm, wrung-out and fortified, explosive and sedate -- love commands a vast army of moods. Hoping for victory, limping from the latest skirmish, lovers enter the arena once again. ... Love is the white light of emotion. ... Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one can agree on what it is.

The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven's sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's jazz. Audrey Hepburn's wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children.

The senses don't just make sense of life in bold or subtle acts of clarity, they tear reality apart into vibrant morsels and reassemble them into a meaningful pattern.

Who you are isn't tied solely to what you say, even though it may feel that way to you now.

Habitats keep evolving new pageants of species, and we shouldn't interfere.

Tranquillity hides in small spaces, and when found needs to be treasured, because you know it's a phantom that will slip away again.