How can you stand to do it? The poor little mouse!"

Grover shrugged. "It's nature," he said. "Nature likes the snake just as much as the mouse.

Then again, that's how the most successful predators work, she thinks ruefully. We stumble into their traps and do their work for them while we're busy getting on with the business of living.

It was great to see the owls," I said.
She smiled.
"Yes. They're wild things, of course. Killers, savages. They're wonderful.

Politicians are interested in the health of the people like predators savor live prey.

I was peace pipes and treaties. My style was to talk and duck. It was an animal tactic, playing dead in hopes that the predators would move to an actual fight.

إن وجود كائنات تعتاش على افتراس أخرى في ذاته يثبت وحشية هذا العالم، وإن فكرت بعقلية بايولوجية لتفسير ذلك على أنه محاولة لحفظ التوازن الأحيائي والبيئي، إلا أن الوسيلة في ذاتها مرعبة.