For Every Reader Who Dies Today, A

I Was About 13, In Some Ways, When I Wrote The First Book. Approximately 18 When I Wrote The Second.

Our Visual Cortexes Are Wired To Quickly Recognize Faces And Then Quickly Subtract Massive Amounts Of Detail From Them, Zeroing In On Their Essential Message: Is This Person Happy? Angry? Fearful? Individual Faces May Vary Greatly, But A Smirk On One Is A Lot Like A Smirk On Another. Smirks Are Conceptual, Not Pictorial. Our Brains Are Like Cartoonists - And Cartoonists Are Like Our Brains, Simplifying And Exaggerating, Subordinating Facial Detail To Abstract Comic Concepts.

I've Moved Away From That Sort Of Deep-ecological Extremism. I Started To Think: What Can We Do For Wild Birds Right Now? I Don't Want These Particular Species To Disappear.

Nice People Don't Necessarily Fall In Love With Nice People.

There Is, After All, A Kind Of Happiness In Unhappiness, If It's The Right Unhappiness.