“To think of the egg, think of the heavens, and of weather. The body of the egg is the sun; it is as round and as magisterial as the sun. It is the only spherical cell in the body. Other cells may be shaped like cinched-in boxes or drops of ink or doughnuts that don’t quite form a hole in the middle, but the egg is a geometer’s dream. The form makes sense: a sphere is among the most stable shapes in nature. If you want to protect your most sacred heirlooms — your genes — bury them in spherical treasure chests. Like pearls, eggs last for decades and they’re hard to crush, and when they’re solicited for fertilization, they travel jauntily down the fallopian tube.
How different is the status of the sperm. A sperm cell may be tinier than an egg, measuring only a small fraction of the volume. And men, I will set aside my zygotic bias here to say that your sperm are indeed magnificent when magnified, vigorous, slaphappy, whip-tailed tears, darting, whirling, waggling, heading nowhere and everywhere at once, living proof of our primordial flagellar past.”