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Consider The Lichen. Lichens Are Just About The Hardiest Visible Organisms On Earth, But The Least Ambitious.

Book Tours Are Really Kind Of Fun. You Get To Stay In Nice Hotels, You Are Driven Everywhere In Big Silver Cars, You Are Treated As If You Are Much More Important Than You Are, You Can Eat Steak Three Times A Day At Someone Else's Expense, And You Get To Talk Endlessly About Yourself For Weeks At A Stretch.

We Are So Used To The Notion Of Our Own Inevitability As Life's Dominant Species That It Is Hard To Grasp That We Are Here Only Because Of Timely Extraterrestrial Bangs And Other Random Flukes. The One Thing We Have In Common With All Other Living Things Is That For Nearly Four Billions Years Our Ancestors Have Managed To Slip Through A Series Of Closing Doors Every Time We Needed Them To.

There Are Things You Just Can't Do In Life. You Can't Beat The Phone Company, You Can't Make A Waiter See You Until He's Ready To See You, And You Can't Go Home Again.

Eating In Sweden Is Really Just A Series Of Heartbreaks.