The astrologers would tell that the U.S. is ruled by fire and Canada is ruled by water. Short version: You pep us up, we cool you down.

Science is not something that exists apart from human beings. It's one of the things we do as human beings, and we always have done science and technology in some form.

Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.

When I was young I believed that "nonfiction" meant "true." But you read a history written in, say, 1920 and a history of the same events written in 1995 and they're very different. There may not be one Truth - there may be several truths - but saying that is not to say that reality doesn't exist.

Those who live alone slide into the habit of vertical eating: why bother with the niceties when there's no one to share or censure? But laxity in one area may lead to derangement in all.

As we know from the study of history, no new system can impose itself upon a previous one without incorporating many of the elements to be found in the latter.

The temptation is to stay inside; to subside into the kind of recluse whom neighborhood children regard with derision and little awe; to let the hedges and weeds grow up, to allow the doors to rust shut, to lie on my bed in some gown-shaped garment and let my hair lengthens and spread out over the pillow and my fingernails to sprout into claws, while candle wax drips onto the carpet. But long ago I made a choice between classicism and romanticism. I prefer to be upright and contained—an urn in daylight.