Some quotes:
"As warm blooded creatures, or homeotherms, we humans have to maintain a constant body temperature, but my cold-blooded poikilotherm snail's temperature matched that of its changing environment."
"While we humans have five senses, relying most heavily on vision to find our way, a snail relies almost entirely on just three senses: smell, taste and touch, with smell being the most critical. My snail could not hear anything at all; it lived in a world of silence. Its 'sight' was highly limited -- just a general awaeness of dark and light to help with orientation."
"In terms of size, mammals are an anomaly, as the vast majority of the world's existing animal species are snail-sized or smaller. It's almost as if, regardless of your kingdom, the smaller your size and the earlier your place on the tree of life, the more critical is your niche on Earth: snail and worms create soil, and blue-green algae create oxygen; mammals seem comparatively dispensable, the result of the random path of evolution over a luxurious amount of time."
"I thought of the terrarium's limited space and how the nsail had seemed content as it ate, explored and fulfilled a life cycle. This gave me hope that perhaps I, too, could still fulfil dreams, even if they were changed dreams."
"A last look at the stars and then to sleep. Lots to do at whatever pace I can go. I must remember the snail. Always remember the snail."
