A life like an intricately woven basket, frayed, worn, broken, unraveled, reworked, reknit from many of its original pieces... Life can survive in the constant shadow of illness, and even rise to moments of rampant joy, but the shadow remains, and one has to make space for it.

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

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

the biggest threat to the religious experience may well come from organized religion itself.

Nature is more like a seesaw than a crystal, a never-ending conga line of bold moves and corrections.

So before I start work on a book, I'm like a pregnant mole - I obsessively tidy and order my closets and everything in my study. Because there's such a cascade of images and ideas that I'm grapping with mentally, I couldn't also be in a chaotic setting.

Fear is danger to your body, but disgust is danger to your soul.