It shouldn't be the consumer's responsibility to figure out what's cruel and what's kind, what's environmentally destructive and what's sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don't need the option of buying children's toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don't need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.

My dream went all the way back to the beginning. The rain rose into the clouds, and the animals descended the ramp.

If we were to one day encounter a form of life more powerful and intelligent than our own, and it regarded us as we regard fish, what would be our argument against being eaten?

I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.

In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.

I would have done anything for him. Maybe that was my sickness. We made love in nothing places and turned the lights off. It felt like crying. We could not look at each other. It always had to be from behind. Like that first time. And I knew he wasn't thinking of me. He squeezed my sides so hard, and pushed so hard. Like he was trying to push me through to somewhere else. Why does anyone ever make love?

I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side.