"Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We'd pass out every time we saw -- actually saw -- a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century; there'd be pandemonium in the streets. People would lie by the thousands in the...

"Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experiences -- buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello -- become new all over again." --Anthony Doerr, Four Seasons in Rome (2007)