Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.

Just because you're an atheist, that doesn't mean you wouldn't love for things to have reasons for why they are.

It will never be the case that people won't eat meat. I think it could conceivably be the case one day that people eat very small amounts of it. That it's a special thing, rather than reach for it because it's cheap or reach for it because it's convenient, that it becomes something festive or something celebratory, once a week, and that could actually be achieved on small farms if we really changed our habits.

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

And here I am, instead of there. I'm sitting in this library, thousands of miles from my life, writing another letter I know I won't be able to send, no matter how hard I try and how much I want to. How did that boy making love behind that shed become this man writing this letter at this table?

I wasn’t having second thoughts, but I was having thoughts.

She said, "Do you have more things that you need, or more that you don't need?" I said, "It depends on what it means to need.