The age-old mistake, which has stunted countless lives, is the assumption that because physical hardship in childhood makes you physically tough, emotional hardship must make you emotionally tough.

Those who deny their own feelings tend to deny other people's.

Humans, the supremely social mammals, are ethical and intellectual sponges. We unconsciously absorb, for good or ill, the influences that surround us.

The Enlightenment ideal, which all universities claim to endorse, is that everyone should think for themselves.

Only one of the many life support systems on which we depend - soils, aquifers, rainfall, ice, the pattern of winds and currents, pollinators, biological abundance and diversity - need fail for everything to slide.

Wildlife film-makers I know tell me that the effort to portray what looks like an untouched ecosystem becomes harder every year. They have to choose their camera angles ever more carefully to exclude the evidence of destruction, travel further to find the Edens they depict.

Farming and fishing are the major causes of the collapse of both marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Meat - consumed in greater quantities by the rich than by the poor - is the strongest cause of all.

The struggle to save every possible species and ecosystem from the current wave of destruction is worthwhile. One day, perhaps within our lifetimes, they could repopulate a thriving world.

Even when political reporting is not reduced to personality, political photography is. An article might offer depth and complexity, but is illustrated with a photo of one of the 10 politicians whose picture must be attached to every news story.

Everyone should be free to learn; knowledge should be disseminated as widely as possible.

While open-access journals have grown rapidly, researchers still have to read the paywalled articles in commercial journals.

Regardless of what we consume, the sheer volume of consumption is overwhelming the Earth's living systems.

Defending the planet means changing the world.

The ideology of consumption is so prevalent that it has become invisible: it is the plastic soup in which we swim.

As a child and young adult, I delighted in being able to identify almost any wild plant or animal.

I have lived long enough to witness the vanishing of wild mammals, butterflies, mayflies, songbirds and fish that I once feared my grandchildren would not experience: it has all happened faster than even the pessimists predicted.

The government argues that without a price, the living world is accorded no value, so irrational decisions are made. By costing nature, you ensure that it commands the investment and protection that other forms of capital attract.

Sometimes I wonder whether anything is learned in conservation, or whether the big NGOs are for ever destined to follow a circular track, endlessly repeating their mistakes.

If I could turn back the clock, magically deleting my prostate cancer, the surgery I needed and its complications, would I do so? It seems an odd question. But I find it surprisingly hard to answer.

We should seek to love our lives and live fully, but not to extend them indefinitely. We should love our children exuberantly, but not cling to them or curtail their freedoms. We should treasure the material world without seeking to own and control it.

When you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, your condition is ranked on the Gleason Score, which measures its level of aggression. Mine is graded at seven out of 10. But this doesn't tell me where I stand in general.

Fear hems us in, stops us from thinking clearly, and prevents us from either challenging oppression or engaging calmly with the impersonal fates.

In talking about my cancer with family and friends, I feel the love that I know will get me through this. The old strategy of suffering in silence could not have been more misguided.

We should be cautious about embracing data before it is published in the academic press, and must always avoid treating correlation as causation.

The people of each generation perceive the state of the ecosystems they encountered in their childhood as normal and natural. When wildlife is depleted, we might notice the loss, but we are unaware that the baseline by which we judge the decline is in fact a state of extreme depletion.

Maybe it's a little depressing to think that my vision of a perfect world is actually so messed up, but I think it means that I don't really understand what 'perfect' is.

When you're a teenager, everything seems like the end of the world, and I don't think that's necessarily a silly thing. You're waking up and becoming aware that the world has problems and those problems affect you, whereas when you're young they don't seem to affect you that much even if you're aware of them. This dystopian trend picks up on that little part of your life where everything feels really extreme and it honors that part of your life and says, "Yeah. It is the end of the world. Look at it."

I think romance is friendship and attraction sort of meeting together and that does influence what I'm writing a lot. I try to establish the attraction, obviously, but I also think it's important to show the characters having actual conversations about things other than their feelings for each other - and to develop their friendship on the page.

I think it's a human tendency that's been around for a while to try to be as good as possible to prove your worth.

Four grabs a bar with each hand and pulls himself up, easy, like he's sitting up in bed. But he is not comfortable or natural here--- every muscle in his arm stands out. it is a stupid thing for me to think when I am one hundred feet off the ground.

Without thinking, I grab Al's arm and squeeze it as tightly as I can. I just need something to hold on to. Blood runs down the side of Christina's face and splatters on the ground next to her cheek. This is the first time I have ever prayed for someone to fall unconscious.... Al frees his hand and pulls me tight to his side. I clench my teeth to keep from crying out.

Just because they didn’t shoot you all in the head doesn’t mean their intentions were somehow honorable. Why do you think they came here? Just to run through your hallways, knock you conscious, and leave?

i like to think that im helping them by hating them

I think I speak for everyone," he says, "when I say you have earned the title of Dauntless".

Which means that in order to defeat her, I have to think of a way to defeat myself. And how can I be a better fighter than myself, if she knows the same strategies I know, and is exactly as resourceful and clever as I am?

This concept could easily have gone awry. Stories about love tend to go that way sometimes. They wander into the realm of cheese and never return, which I think is a shame, because there is a way to write about romantic love without breaking out the Velveeta.

People tend to overestimate my character," I say quietly. "They think that because I'm small, or a girl, or a Stiff, I can't possibly be cruel. But they're wrong.

I like to think I'm helping them by hating them. I'm reminding them that they aren't God's gift to humankind.

There's a reason why she left them, Lauren," he says. His voice is deep, and it rumbles. "What's your name?" "Um..." I don't know why I hesitate. But "Beatrice" just doesn't sound right anymore. "Think about it," he says, a faint smile curling his lips. " You don't get to pick again." A new place, a new name. I can be remade here. "Tris," I say firmly.

Do the elevators work?" I ask Uriah, as quietly as I can. "Sure they do." says Zeke, rolling his eyes, "You think I'm stupid enough not to come here early and turn on the emergency generator?" "Yeah," says Uriah. "I kinda do.

If Eric thinks I did something right, I must have done it wrong.

I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time since I thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only natural. I am glad, suddenly, that I shot Eric in the foot instead of the head.

Why would the factionless have a high Divergent population?" It sounds like she's smirking. "Obviously those who can't confine themselves to a particular way of thinking would be most likely to leave a faction or fail its initiation, right?

My name is Tobias Eaton," Tobias says. "I don't think you want to push me off this train." The effect of the name on the people in the car is immediate and bewildering: they lower their weapons. They exchange meaningful looks. "Eaton? Really?" Edward says, eyebrows raised. "I have to admit, I did not see that coming." He clears his throat. "Fine, you can come. But when we get to the city, you've got to come with us." Then he smiles a little. "We know someone who's been looking for you, Tobias Eaton.

So, the thing we’re all not talking about,” he says. He gestures to me. “You almost died, a sadistic pansycake saved you, and now we’re all waging some serious war with the factionless as allies.” “Pansycake?” says Christina. “Dauntless slang.” Lynn smirks. “Supposed to be a huge insult, only no one uses it anymore.” “Because it’s so offensive,” says Uriah, nodding. “No. Because it’s so stupid no Dauntless with any sense would speak it, let alone think it. Pansycake. What are you, twelve?” “And a half,” he says.

His fingers leave streaks of cold on my skin, invisible to the eye, and I think about wrapping his shirt around my fist and pulling him in to kiss me; I think about pressing myself against him, but I can't, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.

I used to think that cruelty required malice, but that is not true. Jeanine has no reason to act out of malice. But she is cruel because she doesn't care what she does, as long as it fascinates her. I may as well be a puzzle or a broken machine she wants to fix. She will break open my skull just to see the inner workings of my brain; I will die here, and that will be the merciful thing.

Suicide to them is an act of selfishness. Someone who is truly selfless does not think of himself often enough to desire death.

But I think that no matter how smart, people usually see what they're already looking for, that's all.

I touch her cheek to slow the kiss down, holding her mouth on mine so I can feel every place where our lips touch and every place where they pull away. I savor the air we share in the second afterwards and the slip of her nose across mine. I think of something to say, but it is too intimate, so I swallow it. A moment later I decide I don't care. "I wish we were alone," I say as I back out of the cell. She smiles. "I almost always wish that.