Words are capable of making experience more vivid, and also of organizing it. They can scare us, and they can comfort us.

When a book remembers, we remember. It reminds you that you have a body. So many of the things we may think of as burdensome are actually the things that make us more human.

The kind of funny irony is that a lot of people talk about ethical meat eating as if it's a way to care about things, but also not to alienate yourself from the rest of the world. But it's so much more alienating than vegetarianism.

My children not only inspired me to reconsider what kind of eating animal I would be, but also shamed me into reconsideration.

Feeding my children is not like feeding myself: it matters more.

I will never come around to the idea of an anthropomorphic God. I'm also uncomfortable with the word 'God'... I'm agnostic about the answer and I'm agnostic about the question.