“The animate environment has been the most formidable factor in the evolution of mundane life. The inanimate has been indifferent. The animate has not been so. It has been relentless. While the ages were yet tender, life began to riot upon life, and it has continued to do so to this moment. Where the inanimate has slain and selected one, the animate has slain multitudes. It is estimated that the life process is now about twenty millions of years old. Its existence has been one unbroken bacchanal of blood. Aggregate has preyed upon aggregate and species has decimated species. Tides of irresponsibles have swept over the continents and thru the deeps, collided, grappled, and exterminated each other. What is hidden in the horrible chasm between monera and man, no fancy will ever illume. It is the mighty charnal of creation. The skeletons of two millions of exterminated species of living beings are there with all their unimaginable accompaniments—wars, blacknesses, frightful manglings, eclipses, horrible concussions, inextinguishable malignities, hell.”

Preface to Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
Context: And what, you ask, does writing teach us?
First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.
So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

Source: Man and His Symbols

Did Eve really have an Extra Rib?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2002)

Science and Spirit interview (2004)
Context: All life has a kind of seamlessness. All creatures have to be aware of their environment, and there has been an evolution of the capacities needed for detecting increasingly complex stimuli. I have no problem calling this "meaning," since all creatures pick out meaningful facets of their environment. For the first creatures, these facets were physical and mediated by receptor proteins. Sperm and eggs find each other by protein shapes; photosynthetic bacteria find light by protein shapes. The impetus to figure out what's going on is still very much programmed into our highly complex brains.

Source: The Second Sex

As quoted at his last public speech, in reference to the peripatetic nature of his reign.

Savage Survivals (1916), Savage Survivals in Higher Peoples (Continued)
Source: "The Fighting Instinct", p. 138 https://archive.org/details/savagesurvivals00moorrich/page/138/mode/1up

Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 2 : Water