From The Fallen Tree Everybody Makes Firewood.

Our Holiday Food Splurge Was A Small Crate Of Tangerines, Which We Found Ridiculously Thrilling After An Eight-month Abstinence From Citrus.... Lily Hugged Each One To Her Chest Before Undressing It As Gently As A Doll. Watching Her Do That As She Sat Cross-legged On The Floor One Morning In Pink Pajamas, With Bliss Lighting Her Cheeks, I Thought: Lucky Is The World, To Receive This Grateful Child. Value Is Not Made Of Money, But A Tender Balance Of Expectation And Longing.

We Must Surely Appear To The World As Exactly What We Are: A Nation That Organizes Its Economy Around Consuming Twice As Much Oil As It Produces, And Around The Profligate Wastefulness Of The Wars And Campaigns Required To Defend Such Consumption. In Recent Years We Have Defined Our National Interest Largely In Terms Of The Oil Fields And Pipelines We Need To Procure Fuel.

Every Life Is Different Because You Passed This Way And Touched History.

I'm Never Going To Tell The Reader What To Believe; I'm Going To Examine These Characters That Believe Different Ways, And Examine Their Motives.

I Can Think Of No Honorable Answer. Why Must Some Of Us Deliberate Between Brands Of Toothpaste, While Others Deliberate Between Damp Dirt And Bone Dust To Quiet The Fire Of An Empty Stomach Lining? There Is Nothing About The United States I Can Really Explain To This Child Of Another World.