The heart is a museum, filled with the exhibits of a lifetime's loves.

It's so acceptably easy for a woman not to strive too hard, not to be too adventure-crazed, not to take too many risks, not to enjoy sex with full candor ... It isn't seemly for a woman to have that much zest.

Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful.

habit, a particularly insidious thug who chokes passion and smothers love. Habit puts us on autopilot.

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.

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.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.