You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn't, but they do, and a lot.

I remember, when I was a kid, watching my mother jam herself into her girdle - a piece of equipment so rigid it could stand up on its own - and I remember her coming home from fancy parties and racing upstairs to extricate herself from its cruel iron grip.

I've loved some gadgets that were not worthy, and I've loved gadgets that I would have loved more if I had waited for their developers to figure out how to really make them work, but I loved them anyway.

States should pass laws making it illegal to own or trade wild animals; the phony 'educational' permits that many private owners have used to skirt those laws should be eliminated.

College athletics are so entrenched and enjoyed by so many people that they will never be discontinued or substantially changed. I know that. I just pity the people caught in that tender trap. And most of all, I pity those kids.

I've definitely taken a lot of consolation from animals in my life. There have been times when I've been really sad, and they gave solace and comfort and companionability more than a person.