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

Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.

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.

Smell is the mute sense, the one without words.

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.

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.

Humans are the most successful invasives of all time.