One by one and then together the birds chanted, warbled, whistled, and cooed, like a rare desert plant bursting into life after the rain.

The breeze across the desert as the light died was so sweet she could almost drink it.

Long before the stars died the birds began to sing - cool rippling doves, loud cheery starlings, the long lilting trills of warblers and thrushes.

Dawn raced like fire across the savanna.

Faraway a leopard barked that high, dissatisfied deep roar it cuts off so sharply, as if its annoyance is too great to express, can only be appeased.

Water was how the desert would bring everyone together. The antelope's daily prayer, weighing the mortal need of water with the mortal danger of obtaining it.

I have spent hours and hours watching elephants, and to come to understand what emotional creatures they are...it's not just a species facing extinction, it's massive individual suffering.

Already this sun was pouring its wrath into the blue Indian ocean where swordfish and marlin cruised like silver-blue attenuated warheads in their green-gold depths...

Inside her head or out in the desert was the same, and the air inside her throat was very dry to keep from crying and her neck sore from forcing herself not to look down, not to look back.

She wasn’t religious. She didn’t believe in heaven or hell, only in ghosts, Ouija boards, tables which rapped and little inept voices speaking plaintively of flowers

Ugster vinyl pumps, Partridge Family records, plastic daisy jewelry, old postcards. . . . It's a magpie Christmas market.

Caring about the welfare of children and shaming parents are mutually exclusive endeavors.

I have tried every diet to lose weight. When you restrict yourself, you're setting yourself up for failure.

If you're going to have a heart attack, mine was the kind to have. I'm thankful that it hasn't affected my output or my capacity to perform. And it has given me a lot to think and write about.

I hate Calvin and Hobbes. I think its a big re-hash of formula kid strips.

I think people have a little wall they throw up real quick if they see swords and sorcery.

Any idiot can make money. Keeping money, very few can do.

You're terrified that nothing will ever give you the fulfillment that dancing has given you.

Libraries are sexual dream factories. The langour brings it on.