In a society so estranged from animals as ours, we often fail to credit them with any form of language. If we do, it comes under the heading of communication rather than speech. And yet, the great silence we have imposed on the rest of life contains ...
When the ship approached the equator, I stopped going out on deck in the daytime. The sun burned like a flame. The days had shortened and night came swiftly. One moment it was light, the next it was dark. The sun did not set but fell into the water l...
You don’t really have idea about any of that olden-days stuff, do you?” He’s sure he can feel her smiling against his shoulder. “Busted,” she says. “Ah, it’s some nice talk, though, Sol. You make it all sound real nice.” “That’s t...
Darn! what a beautiful night! Heading towards Pandara Road-Gulati Restaurant, with open windows of my baby sedan and this broad chest guy with big brown eyes. He hums the oldies well and his Issey Miyake is making me lose the grip over my senses. One...
Katrina held Bram in her arms, speaking softly, reassuringly, as they approached baby Modoc. This was an important moment, a beginning, for she knew the boy would spend his life with animals, especially elephants, and the meeting was of utmost import...
Though we became experimental creatures of our own devising, it’s important to bear in mind that we had no inkling of this process, let alone its consequences, until only the last six or seven of our 100,000 generations. We have done it all sleepwa...
[R]eligion was the race's first (and worst) attempt to make sense of reality. It was the best the species could do at a time when we had no concept of physics, chemistry, biology or medicine. We did not know that we lived on a round planet, let alone...
I feel good with my husband: I like his warmth and his bigness and his being-there and his making and his jokes and stories and what he reads and how he likes fishing and walks and pigs and foxes and little animals and is honest and not vain or fame-...
Maybe this is kind of cliche, but animals, well, dogs, are what I do for a living. One reason I like spending time with them so much is they seem to think people are really good. They live with us, and obey our rules, most of which make no sense to t...
I went back every evening, after work, for nearly a year. I learned the meaning of the cud of a leaf and the glisten of wet pebbles, and the special significance of curves and angles. A great deal of the writing was unwritten. Plot three dots on a gr...
La raison qui m’a conduit à proférer de la poésie (shi‘r) est que j’ai vu en songe un ange qui m’apportait un morceau de lumière blanche ; on eût dit qu’il provenait du soleil. « Qu’est-ce que cela ? », Demandai-je. « C’est...
For the Wife Beater's Wife With blue irises her face is blossomed. Blue Circling to yellow, circling to brown on her cheeks. The long bone of her jaw untracked She hides in our kitchen. He sleeps it off next door. Her chicken legs tucked under her Sh...
Gangster 'Johnny': Who is it? Pizza Boy: It's Little Nero's, sir. I have your pizza. Gangster 'Johnny': Leave it on the doorstep and get the hell outta here. Pizza Boy: Okay. [leaves the pizza on the doormat] Pizza Boy: But what about the money? Gang...
Charley Ford: Hey, Dick, you ever diddled a squaw? Dick Liddil: Shh... Charley Ford: Come on, you can tell me. I've always wanted to lay down with a redskin. Dick Liddil: Well, Charley, there's a feeling that comes over you gettin' inside a woman who...
D-Day: Hey, quit your blubberin'. When I get through with this baby you won't even recognize it. Otter: Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fucked up... you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it! Maybe we can he...
Selon Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari: [...] "C'est une véritable haine qui anime la logique, dans sa rivalité ou sa volonté de supplanter la philosophie. Elle tue le concept deux fois. Pourtant le concept renaît, parce qu'il n'est pas une fonc...
What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?" "Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the h...
Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, -a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, bu...
Whether we accept it or not, this will likely be the century that determines what the optimal human population is for our planet. It will come about in one of two ways: Either we decide to manage our own numbers, to avoid a collision of every line on...
The trail through the pines and beech trees was bright red. He was surprised the other human couldn’t see it. She was walking slowly, not far from him. He could smell the moisture on her hot skin. She hadn’t noticed his presence yet. She stopped ...
Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? The reason is clearly that the human heart as modern civilisation has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is pron...
