“It can be challenge enough to have to eat with myself.”

“I'd left behind a thousand tons of marble, I could have released sculptures, I could have released myself from the marble of myself. I'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough?”

“...that's the business model. How quickly can they be made to grow, how tightly can they be packed, how much or little can they eat, how sick can they get without dying. This isn't animal experimentation, where you can imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating... Why doesn't a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it? It's easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it... How riveting wold the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly?”

“Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize years after an offense, whisper, fear themselves, interpret dreams, hide their genitalia, shave, bury time capsules, and can choose not to eat something for reasons of conscience. The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.”

“Ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore -- "I'm easy; I'll eat anything" -- can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society.”

“i thought about life, about my life, the embarrassments, the little coincidences, the shadows of alarm clocks on bedside tables, i thought about my small victories and everything i'd seen destroyed. i'd swum through mink coats on my parents' bed while they hosted downstairs, i'd lost the only person with whom i could have spent my only life, i'd left behind a thousand tonnes of marble from which i could have released sculptures, i could have released myself from the marble of myself, i'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough? the end of suffering does not justify the suffering.”

“I'm a vegetarian.You're a what?I don't eat meat.How can you not eat meat?I just don't.He says he does not eat meat.What?No meat?No meat.Steak?No...Chickens!No...And what about the sausage?No, no sausage, no meat!He says he does not eat any meat.Not even sausage?I know!What is wrong with him?What is wrong with you?Nothing, I just don't eat meat!”