'Dept. of Speculation' contains numerous enviable lines.

Some suggestions for you :

It seems to me that the time for subtlety in our American life has passed.

The grizzly bears that live in and around Yellowstone make up almost half the population in the lower 48 states, and now those bears are at risk.

Work-wise, I try not to repeat myself too often. And I have to love whatever I'm doing.

The question of one versus two species of African elephants isn't about settling an arcane DNA argument; it's about life or death for these majestic, extraordinary creatures.

I advise, if you're stymied by a passage or paragraph or plot point - whether it's for an assignment from the outside world or one that comes only from within - get up from wherever you're sitting, walk outdoors, and do nothing but look at the sky for five minutes. Just stare at that thing. Then execute a small bow and go back in.

My motto is, if you love something, don't set it free. No matter how hard it struggles. That would be stupid.

After numerous generations of people dedicated to killing wolves on the North American continent, one generation devoted itself to letting wolves live.

More than two million years ago, mammoths and Asian elephants took different evolutionary paths - and around the same time, according to DNA research, so did their lumbering relatives in Africa.

It's a friendly act to write a lighthearted book.

Shouldn't the cascades of extinction and rapid planetary warming register in our literature?

For almost two centuries, American gray wolves, vilified in fact as well as fiction, were the victims of vicious government extermination programs. By the time the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, only a few hundred of these once-great predators were left in the lower 48 states.

Trophy hunters are not Everyman. These world-traveling endangered-species shooters are a far cry from the hunters who spend weekends in the American outback near their suburban or rural homes.

I'm for any woman who loves sloths.

Children depend mightily on animals for comfort, inspiration, imagination, and art. And parents have long recognized this.