Humans are the most successful invasives of all time.

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

We live on the leash of our senses.

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.

Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.

We would lie on coral sand, below sugary stars, watching Cassiopeia mount her throne and the Great Bear wash its paws in the South. I would say, "I have a secret to tell you." And, folding me in your arms, boyish and sly, you would answer: "Whisper it into my mouth.