“Whether people need nature or not, it was clear that nature needed people. But perhaps nature needs us like a hostage needs her captors: nature needs us not to annihilate her, not to run her over, ...”

“Even in rainier areas, where dust is less inexorable and submits to brooms and rags, it is generally detested, because dust is not organized and is therefore considered aesthetically bankrupt. Our ...”

“The world, full of past sound, would be like the sky, full of past light. The world would be like the mind, for which there is no once.”

“Our inventions have long been ahead of us in terms of efficiency and sanity, productivity and predictability. Oh, how weve wished we could be manmade, too. What has been keeping us back, keeping us...”

“Why should conversation always be so much more coherent than experience?”

“Plants cannot stay safe. Desire for light spools grass out of the ground; desire for a visitor spools red ruffles out of twigs. Desire makes plants very brave, so they can find what they desire; an...”

“That is one good thing about this worldthere are always sure to be more springs.”

“People talk about the beauty of the spring, but I can't see it. The trees are brown and bare, slimy with rain. Some are crawling with new purple hairs. And the buds are bulging like tumorous acne, ...”

“It is so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done.”

“I like indoor Christmas trees. And I like people who decorate their homes with lights and all that crap. I think it's a healthy outlet for them. If they weren't covering their lawns with twinkling ...”

“I'm still a Chicagoan in the fact that I can't do Christmas with sand and palm trees. It just doesn't compute - it's not Christmas unless your face hurts when you step outside.”

“Being half Jewish, we grew up with Christmas trees but had Jewish ornaments.”