“Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Playboy combined.”

“Mom is a compulsive reader. She reads for pleasure, she reads to edify herself, but more often than not, she reads because she can't help it. I understand. The minute I find myself sitting still, I start rummaging around for printed material.p 97”

“Humans possess no monopoly on the powers of preservation and destruction. Our ability to wield these powers with sustained intent, however, is unmatched on this earth. Nature can trump us in an instance or over millenia, but in the day-to-day main, humankind has developed a preponderant ability to fiddle with destiny. More than any other natural force or creature, we decide what will go and what will stay: the rainforest, an old building, a sickly cat... ourselves.”

“I am no sort of art expert. I have only been to the Whitney once before, on a previous business visit that coincided with the Biennial. I enjoyed great swaths of that, although I was tempted to leave a note for several of the artists that said, "Great Start!" I would write it in crayon and add a smiley face so as not to seem rude. And I just do not have the patience for video installations, having yet to encounter one that conveys the absurdity of the human situation more effectively than a night spent channel surfing in a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Rapid City. But I like to look at everything.”

“[Fire] is lightfooted and shamanic, dancing between the visible and invisible, undoing matter one collapsed molecule at a time, wreaking utter destruction with a touch softer than breath. Its poor cousins, wind and water, are one-dimensional rubes by comparison. Wind is all push, push, push. Water is suffocating, but passively so. And even when water gets it together to be a torrent or a tsunami, it is but wet wind. Fire is at once elemental and otherworldly. Fire dances on the grave of all it destroys. Fire is serious voodoo.”

“It’s hard to talk about guns without sounding defensive or blustery. I’m pro-gun the same way I’m pro-potato fork. I use them both to gather food for the year, with the caveat that if you break into my house, I won’t be waiting for yo at the top of the stairs with a potato fork.”

“From the get-go, my hair was programmed to fall out. One is grateful this so rarely happens with the pancreas or the eyeballs.”