“Every time I see a bee it is new. This is at least partly because I do not believe that I know what or who or how a bee is. I have ideas. Memories. Descriptions. Words. Names. Speculations. Knowledge.

As it is my inclination and habit to steadfastly refuse to confuse these with the bee, the bee remains for me approximately as astonishing as the entire universe.

How, indeed, could it be otherwise?”

— an anonymous informant