This brings me back to the image of Kafka standing before a fish in the Berlin aquarium, a fish on which his gaze fell in a newly found peace after he decided not to eat animals. Kafka recognized that fish as a member of his invisible family- not as his equal, of course, but as another being that was his concern.

I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)

You are the only one who has understood even a whisper of me, and I will tell you that I am the only person who has understood even a whisper of you.

Why didn't he say goodbye? I gave myself a bruise. Why didn't he say 'I love you'?

It is not a thing that you can imagine. It only is. After that, there can be no imagining.

We are breeding creatures incapable of surviving in any place other than the most artificial settings. We have focused the awesome power of modern genetic knowledge to bring into being animals that suffer more.

We've made science experiments of ourselves and our children.