"One of the big questions in the climate change debate: Are humans any smarter than frogs in a pot? If you put a frog in a pot and slowly turn up the heat, it won't jump out. Instead, it will enjoy the nice warm bath until it is cooked to death. We humans seem to be doing pretty much the same thing."

"In the United States, we do a pretty good job of protecting iconic landscapes and postcard views, but the ocean gets no respect."

"Nowhere has the political power of coal been more obvious than in presidential campaigns."

"With nine degrees of warming, computer models project that Australia will look like a disaster movie. Habitats for most vertebrates will vanish. Water supply to the Murray-Darling Basin will fall by half, severely curtailing food production."

"The first books I was interested in were all about baseball. But I can't think of one single book that changed my life in any way."

"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."

"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat."

"A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story."