We seem wired to grieve with greenery. Allowing the dead to dissolve into the earth, to become part of the cycle of the seasons, has, for millennia, held the promise of cheating mortality.

I am strongly of the opinion that chronology is very important. The great arc of time is what children are wired for.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,/ Whether the summer clothe the general earth/ With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing / Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch / Of mossy apple tree.

Now surely Allah's is what is in the heavens and the earth; now surely Allah's promise is true, but most of them do not know.

Humans have always been attacked by novel pathogens. This process has been going on for millennia. But it does seem to be happening very fast in these modern times.

The novelist's obligation to remake the sensuous texture of a vanished world is also the historian's. The strongest fiction writers often do deep research to make the thought and utterances of lost time credible.