“Don’t believe what you hear about those penguins. A species of lazy waddlers. Their extinction is immanent.”

“Maybe you are a poet and a dreamer, but don't you realize that those two species are extinct now?”

“Land of the Dead? Is that what you dream about?” she asks. “Boy who kills ghosts for a living?” “No. I dream about penguins doing bridge construction. Don’t ask why.”

“I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species. Furthermore, I am convinced that natural selection has been the most important, but not the exclusive, means of modification.”

“Life has had to deal with environmental change, especially climate change, since the beginning of its existence on Earth. Species adjust or go extinct, and both have happened. For life-forms with our kinds of cells—eukaryotic, the kind with distinct organelles—the average existence of a species is about 1 million years, and, on average, one species goes extinct a year, at least of the species we have named and know, including those we know only from fossil records."-Dan Botkin, excerpt from THE MOON IN THE NAUTILUS SHELL.”

“You’re hurt,” she commented. And I care? Okay. It’s official. I’m my own species now: pathetic-deathwish-osaurus…I sooo hear extinction calling me.”