Diane Ackerman

The further we distance ourselves from the spell of the present, explored by our senses, the harder it will be to understand and protect nature's precarious balance, let alone the balance of our own human nature.

Cicadas, buckling and unbuckling their stomach muscles, yield the sound of someone sharpening scissors. Fall field crickets, the thermometer hounds, add high-pitched tinkling chirps to the jazz, and their call quickens with warm weather, slows again with cool.

I haven't modelled since I was 12 - that was a one-time thing, and I did it as a kid to make a little money to save up for university. Acting is my first love as well as writing and eventually producing and directing.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?

Socialism has no moral justification whatsoever; poor people are not morally superior to rich people, nor are they owed anything by rich people simply because of their lack of success. Charity is not a socialist concept - it is a religious one, an acknowledgment of God's sovereignty over property, a sovereignty the Left utterly rejects.