The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, what a mess I am, I thought, what a fool, how foolish and narrow, how worthless, how pinched and pathetic, how helpless.

We aren’t exactly emptying the oceans; it’s more like clear-cutting a forest with thousands of species to create massive fields with one type of soybean.

I think it's very pretty. Can it be pretty if no one thinks it's pretty? I think it's pretty. If you're the only one? That's pretty pretty. And what about the boys? Don't you want them to think you're pretty? I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.

What kind of world would we create if three times a day we activated our compassion and reason as we sat down to eat, if we had the moral imagination and the pragmatic will to change our most fundamental act of consumption?

I can forgive you for leaving, but not for coming back.

I never confused what I had with what I was.

[Grandfather] would manufacture funnies with Grandmother before she died about how he was in love with other women who were not her. She knew it was only funnies because she would laugh in volumes. 'Anna,' he would say, 'I am going to marry that one with the pink hat.' And she would say, 'To whom are you going to marry her?' And he would say, 'To me.' I would laugh very much in the back seat, and she would say to him, 'But you are no priest.' And he would say, 'I am today.' And she would say, 'Today you believe in God?' And he would say, 'Today I believe in love.