Violets smell like burnt sugar cubes that have been dipped in lemon and velvet.

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

For the longest time I didn't realize I was creative - I just thought I was strange.

Though we marry as adults, we don't marry adults. We marry children who have grown up and still rejoice in being children, especially if we're creative.

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.

Love is the great intangible. ... Frantic and serene, vigilant and calm, wrung-out and fortified, explosive and sedate -- love commands a vast army of moods. Hoping for victory, limping from the latest skirmish, lovers enter the arena once again. ... Love is the white light of emotion. ... Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one can agree on what it is.

Not much is known about alligators. They don't train well. And they're unwieldy and rowdy to work with in laboratories.