The further we distance ourselves from the spell of the present, explored by our senses, the harder it will be to understand and protect nature's precarious balance, let alone the balance of our own human nature.

And yet, words are the passkeys to our souls. Without them, we can't really share the enormity of our lives.

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...

Couples are jigsaw puzzles that hang together by touching in just enough points. They're never total fits or misfits. In time, a pair invents its own commonwealth, complete with anthems, rituals, and lingos-a cult of two with fallible gods.

We live on the leash of our senses.

We are defined by how we place our attention.

Things that live by night live outside the realm of 'normal' time and so suggest living outside the realm of good and evil, since we have moralistic feelings about time. Chauvinistic about our human need to wake by day and sleep by night, we come to associate night dwellers with people up to no good at a time when they have the jump on the rest of us and are defying nature, defying their circadian rhythms.