“If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?”

“I was a vegetarian of sorts," he replied, "but the difference between animal and vegetable isn't as clearly defined on my home world as it is here.""How do you mean?" I asked."Our plants can get out of the soil and move to a new location if they don't like where they're growing. Some of them are sentient. I tried not to eat those sorts of plants" he replied."Oh. Well, I'm sure they found that very thoughtful of you," I replied.”

“Let's go. We're supposed to rendezvous with the Captain at the lake. Oh, and try to keep the noise down. You sound like a panicked moose crashing through the woods," the smarter man chided."Oh yeah. Like you could hear me over your specially trained 'woodland-animal footsteps,'" Rough Voice countered. "It was like listening to two deer humping each other.”

“I’ve always found wildlife very calming-- except when animals are eating each other, of course.”

“The seat belt irked his father more than Uncle Colin's not eating meat, because, though his father never said it, Larry knew he considered seat belts cowardly.”

“In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.”

“I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.”