In the sixties, you could always insult a guy by calling him “plastic.” It meant he was phony or superficial. The opposite of plastic was “real.” – Elizabeth Royte, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, 2005

Environmentalists have long been fond of saying that the sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away. – Stephanie Mills, ed., In Praise of Nature, 1990

The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future. – Marya Mannes, More in Anger, 1958

The command “Be fruitful and multiply” was promulgated, according to our authorities, when the population of the world consisted of two people. – William Ralph Inge, More Lay Thoughts of a Dean, 1931