“As human beings, how do we choose to react in that instant when someone walks toward us, smiles, and begins to speak?”

“We speak, and write, in one of the most diverse, gloriously ecumenical tongues on the planet. In English, there is a word or phrase for pretty much anything we want to say, and if there isn't, we make it up, and it is welcomed into the family. We can express ourselves as complexly or as simply as we like. We can be magniloquent didacts, or we can talk plain.”

“The world needed changing - that I knew. Global warming threatened to give us all a lethal tan; war and poverty decimated whole nations; crops worldwide were shriveling; even our brethren beasts menaced us with their monkey pox and bird flu and mad cow disease.”

“She described to us six lanes' worth of unadulterated fear, populated exclusively by motorists whose driving education had been paid for by the blood of pedestrians.”

“After graduating, I'd moved to the Washington D.C. area to see what I could do with the skills I'd picked up from a creative writing degree. The chief export of the nation's capital is, of course, paper work, so I reckoned I could land some kind of writing or editing position at one of the many nonprofits and associations in the area.”

“The standard clauses of the American dream only included two weeks of vacation a year.”

“Consider this argument another wedge served from the malodorous pie known as "My way is Right," the dessert of choice for politicians, religious leaders, and warring pastry chefs.”