We have only two modes - complacency and panic.

We are not good at recognizing distant threats even if their probability is 100%. Society ignoring [peak oil] is like the people of Pompeii ignoring the rumblings below Vesuvius.

The notion of a defense that will protect American cities is one that will not be achieved, but it is that goal that supplies the political magic, as it were, in the president's vision.

Under budgetary pressure (arbitrary or not) it is truly remarkable how many options one discovers one can do without.

Oil production should peak out around the world in the early 1990s...That means in five years' time we may have chewed up most of the possibility of further expansion of oil production.

I caught his hand. “What do you want me to do?”Leaning down, he kissed the pulse beating on my neck just above the damaged skin. “Tomorrow, I need you to die.

Depressing thought: my friends were the girls I ate lunch with, all buddies from kindergarten who knew one another so well we weren't sure if we even liked one another anymore.

Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon.

But the minimum human duty is to serve others: it is no great attainment.

What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.

So say it loud and let it ring We are all a part of everything The future, present and the past Fly on proud bird You're free at last

... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but itcan not do without that life.

The single most important condition for literacy learning is the presence of mentors who are joyfully literate people.

You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.

John Irving once told me he doesn't start a novel until he knows the last sentence. I said, 'My God, Irving, isn't that like working in a factory?'