“There is something about eating animals that tends to polarize: never eat them or never sincerely question eating them; become an activist or disdain activists.”

“The justifications for eating animals and for not eating them are often identical: we are not them.”

“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.”

“Almost always when I told someone I was writing a book about "eating animals", they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism. It's a telling assumption, one that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case.”

“This isn't animal experimentation, where you an imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Tell me something: Why is taste, the crudest of our sense, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other sense? If you stop and think about it, it's crazy. Why doesn't a horny person has as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it?”

“...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?”

“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!”