Sometimes I still have American dreams. I mean literally. I see microwave ovens and exercise machines and grocery-store shelves with thirty brands of shampoo, and I look at these things oddly, in my dream. I stand and I think, ‘What is all this for? What is the hunger that drives this need?’ I think it’s fear. I hope you won’t be hurt by this but I don’t think I’ll ever be going back. I don’t think I can.

-Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams