1
" And do you know where sausages come from?” The question surprised him. Sausage was meat and meat was inside everything that moved. The STORE, he said. She translated and the man laughed. She said, “He means before that, Sam, before the store?” THEY KILL PIGS, he said. She said the words aloud. The man laughed again. “He’s amazing,” he said to her. “He really is. But tell me, Sam, who kills them, who kills the pigs?” The simplest sign, a single finger pointed right at him: YOU. “Me? I’ve never killed anything in my life.” But he just shook his head, shook his head no, because that wasn’t the truth. "
― T. Coraghessan Boyle , Talk to Me
6
" Are animals self-aware? That was one of the big questions in the field of animal consciousness and the evidentiary standard was the mirror test, in which a sleeping animal—elephant, dog, crow, human child, ape—was tagged on the face with a bright-colored sticker and then, on awakening, presented with a mirror. If the animal noticed the sticker and reached up to examine it, to remove it, this was proof that it recognized itself as a discrete individual, which in turn meant it exhibited a higher level of consciousness. Dogs failed, cats failed, but elephants, porpoises, crows, apes and human children passed easily, and Sam was so smart he could have conducted the tests himself. "
― T. Coraghessan Boyle , Talk to Me