I had reached a point in my career in which I was ready to try something new in my writing, and the idea of a novel has always been in the back of my mind.

If we lose half the species, which could happen by the end of the century if we don't do anything, that's going to create a big difference down the line in the stability and even the economic potential in the living world. Irreversibly.

Consider the nematode roundworm, the most abundant of all animals. Four out of five animals on Earth are nematode worms — if all solid materials except nematode worms were to be eliminated, you could still see the ghostly outline of most of it in nematode worms.

The historical circumstance of interest is that the tropical rain forests have persisted over broad parts of the continents since their origins as stronghold of the flowering plants 150 million years ago.

The price of these failures has been a loss of moral consensus, a greater sense of helplessness about the human condition. ... The intellectual solution to the first dilemma can be achieved by a deeper and more courageous examination of human nature that combines the findings of biology with those of the social sciences.

The beginning of wisdom, as the Chinese say, is calling things by their right names.

I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.