We evolved as creatures knitted into the fabric of nature, and without its intimate truths, we can find ourselves unraveling.

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

Complexity excites the mind, and order rewards it. In the garden, one finds both, including vanishingly small orders too complex to spot, and orders so vast the mind struggles to embrace them.

Adventure is not something you travel to find. It's something you take with you, or you're not going to find it when you arrive.

Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret. You are looking into a predator's eyes. Most predators have eyes set right on the front of their heads, so they can use binocular vision to sight and track their prey.

Writer's block is a luxury most people with deadlines don't have.

If we mammals don't get something to eat every day or two, our temperature drops, all our signs fall off, and we begin to starve. Living at biological red alert, it's not surprising how obsessed we are with food; I'm just amazed we don't pace and fret about it all the time.