We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.

....Worthy would-be worlds of words, whorls of working wonder.

Almost always when I told someone I was writing a book about "eating animals", they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism. It's a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case.

And the general shot my sister. I could not look at her, but I remember the sound of when she hit the ground. I hear that sound when things hit the ground still. Anything.' If I could, I would make it so nothing ever hit the ground again.

I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud.

The Eskimos have four hundred words for snow, and the Jewshave four hundred for schmuck.

I believed him. I was not stupid. I was his wife.