...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.

Nature is also great fun. To pretend that nature isn't fun is to miss much of the joy of being alive.

Writing is my form of celebration and prayer.

Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm, I’m stricken by the ricochet wonder of it all: the plain everythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness of everything else.

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

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

Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.