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

No matter how politely one says it, we owe our existence to the farts of blue-green algae.

One of the keystones of romantic love - and also of the ecstatic religion practiced by mystics - is the powerful desire to become one with the beloved.

We can't enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention

For me, life offers so many complexly appealing moments that two beautiful objects may be equally beautiful for different reasons and at different times. How can one choose?

Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.