When it comes to meat, change is almost always cast as an absolute. You are a vegetarian or you are not.

Books are slow, books are quiet. The Internet is fast and loud.

What were we spending so much time doing if not getting to know each other?

I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.

We cracked up together, which was necessary, because she loved me again.

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.

They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our lover for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life.