What I’m really wondering is why notices were posted and invitations s — Diane Ackerman

"Human beings are sloshing sacks of chemicals on the move."

"But we rarely taste the real thing. The vanilla flavoring we buy in the spice section of grocery stores, the vanilla we find in most of our ice creams, cakes, yogurts, and other foods, as well as in shampoos and perfumes, is an artificial flavor created in laboratories and mixed with alcohol and other ingredients. Marshall McLuhan once warned us that we were drifting so far away from the real taste of life that we had begun to prefer artificiality, and were becoming content with eating the menu descriptions rather than the food."

"We hallucinate sounds more often than sights. There are auditory mirages, which vanish without trace; auditory illusions that turn out to be something other than they seemed; and, of course, voices that speak to saints, seers, and psychotics, telling them how to act and what to believe."

"... extinction is happening very fast, because weve been destroying habitats — and polluting things. And there may come a time when we want to bring back animals, or we could use the just to the enrich the gene pool of animals that are very close to extinction."

"... you dont have to be larger than life to come to the aid of somebody in trouble. All you need to be able to be compassionate, put your own troubles on hold while someone elses are taking the forefront, and, maybe the toughest part, you have to be wholly nonjudgemental."

"Consciousness, the great poem of matter, seems so unlikely, so impossible, and yet here we are with our loneliness and our giant dreams."