I know that you are a mere flea! I know that you need only be squashed to be done away with! I know that I have fought this same battle a thousand thousand times before...But, perhaps this time I can crush you like the insect you are!

She first peered into its fascinating cases of beetles and butterflies at the age of six, in the company of her father. She recalls her pity at each occupant pinned for display. It was no great leap to draw the same conclusion of ladies: similarly bound and trussed, pinned and contained, with the objective of being admired, in all their gaudy beauty.

There's this shop in New York I go to it has bones and fossils and insects that are like works of art. I have a few on my wall.

I'll stop eating steak when you stop killing spiders.' Absurdity: comparing cows to spiders. Arachnids are pure evil. They're like a cigarette manufacturer or a terrorist. They're organized religion on eight legs.

In summer the empire of insects spreads.

Dear samanthai’m sorrywe have to get a divorcei know that seems like an odd way to start a love letter but let me explain:it’s not youit sure as hell isn’t meit’s just human beings don’t love as well as insects doi love you.. Far too much to let what we have be ruined by the failings of our speciesi saw the way you looked at the waiter last nighti know you would never DO anything, you never do but..I saw the way you looked at the waiter last nightdid you know that when a female fly accepts the pheromones put off by a male fly, it re-writes her brain, destroys the receptors that receive pheromones, sensing the change, the male fly does the same. When two flies love each other they do it so hard, they will never love anything else ever again. If either one of them dies before procreation can happen both sets of genetic code are lost forever. Now that… is dedication.After Elizabeth and I broke up we spent three days dividing everything we had bought togetherlike if I knew what pots were mine like if I knew which drapes were mine somehow the pain would go awaythis is not trueafter two praying mantises mate, the nervous system of the male begins to shut downwhile he still has control over his motor functionshe flops onto his back, exposing his soft underbelly up to his lover like a giftshe then proceeds to lovingly dice him into tiny cubesspooning every morsel into her mouthshe wastes nothingeven the exoskeleton goesshe does this so that once their children are born she has something to regurgitate to feed themnow that.. Is selflessnessi could never do that for youso I have a new plani’m gonna leave you nowi’m gonna spend the rest of my life committing petty injusticesi hope you do the samei will jay walk at every opportunity I will steal things I could easily affordi will be rude to strangersi hope you do the samei hope reincarnation is reali hope our petty crimes are enough to cause us to be reborn as lesser creatures I hope we are reborn as fliesso that we can love each other as hard as we were meant to.

We’re organisms; we’re conceived, we’re born, we live, we die, and we decay. But as we decay we feed the world of the living: plants and bugs and bacteria.

What?' He cried, darting at him a look of fury: 'Dare you still implore the Eternal's mercy? Would you feign penitence, and again act an Hypocrite's part? Villain, resign your hopes of pardon. Thus I secure my prey!'As He said this, darting his talons into the Monk's shaven crown, He sprang with him from the rock. The Caves and mountains rang with Ambrosio's shrieks. The Daemon continued to soar aloft, till reaching a dreadful height, He released the sufferer. Headlong fell the Monk through the airy waste; The sharp point of a rock received him; and He rolled from precipice to precipice, till bruised and mangled He rested on the river's banks. Life still existed in his miserable frame: He attempted in vain to raise himself; His broken and dislocated limbs refused to perform their office, nor was He able to quit the spot where He had first fallen. The Sun now rose above the horizon; Its scorching beams darted full upon the head of the expiring Sinner. Myriads of insects were called forth by the warmth; They drank the blood which trickled from Ambrosio's wounds; He had no power to drive them from him, and they fastened upon his sores, darted their stings into his body, covered him with their multitudes, and inflicted on him tortures the most exquisite and insupportable. The Eagles of the rock tore his flesh piecemeal, and dug out his eyeballs with their crooked beaks. A burning thirst tormented him; He heard the river's murmur as it rolled beside him, but strove in vain to drag himself towards the sound. Blind, maimed, helpless, and despairing, venting his rage in blasphemy and curses, execrating his existence, yet dreading the arrival of death destined to yield him up to greater torments, six miserable days did the Villain languish. On the Seventh a violent storm arose: The winds in fury rent up rocks and forests: The sky was now black with clouds, now sheeted with fire: The rain fell in torrents; It swelled the stream; The waves overflowed their banks; They reached the spot where Ambrosio lay, and when they abated carried with them into the river the Corse of the despairing Monk.

Bugs never bug my head. They are amazing. It is the activities of humans which actually bug me all the time.

This time of year, the purple blooms were busy with life- not just the bees, but butterflies and ladybugs, skippers and emerald-toned beetles, flitting hummingbirds and sapphire dragonflies. The sun-warmed sweet haze of the blossoms filled the air.'When I was a kid,' said Isabel, 'I used to capture butterflies, but I was afraid of the bees. I'm getting over that, though.' The bees softly rose and hovered over the flowers, their steady hum oddly soothing. The quiet buzzing was the soundtrack of her girlhood summers. Even now, she could close her eyes and remember her walks with Bubbie, and how they would net a monarch or swallowtail butterfly, studying the creature in a big clear jar before setting it free again. They always set them free.As she watched the activity in the hedge, a memory floated up from the past- Bubbie, gently explaining to Isabel why they needed to open the jar. 'No creature should ever be trapped against its will,' she used to say. 'It will ruin itself, just trying to escape.' As a survivor of a concentration camp, Bubbie only ever spoke of the experience in the most oblique of terms.