“The arrogance and brutality of empire are not repealed when they temporarily get deployed in a just cause.”

“When a writer talks about his work, he's talking about a love affair.”

“The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.”

“One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.”

“It's brutal out there. A bear will eat a lactating ewe alive, starting with her udders. as a rule, animals in the wild don't get good deaths surrounded by their loved ones.”

“cause when there's life there's still hope”

“...evolution is not a religious tenet, to which one swears allegiance or belief as a matter of faith.. It is a factual reality of the empirical world. Just as one would not say 'I believe in gravity," one should not proclaim 'I believe in evolution.”