I had this great urge... I had it the day I was born. Some may call it destiny. My parents and friends called it dismaying.

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.

I feel more comfortable with gorillas than people. I can anticipate what a gorilla's going to do, and they're purely motivated.

I have no friends. The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.

The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow.

One of the basic steps in saving a threatened species is to learn more about it: its diet, its mating and reproductive processes, its range patterns, its social behavior.

Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.'

It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes.

[About gorillas] You take these fine, regal animals. How many (human) fathers have the same sense of paternity? How many human mothers are more caring? The family structure is unbelievably strong.

The extraordinary gentleness of the adult male with his young dispels all the King Kong mythology.

I had a wonderful contact, especially with Uncle Bert who was an angel and led the whole group over to my side of a steep ravine I could not cross to get over to them

Reading is for pleasure

The purpose of lifeis to give our life purpose.

I am 73 years old. I've seen everything. I've met the kings, the queens, the presidents, I've been around the world. I have one thing that I would like to do: to try to reach peace.

So the smart brain must be balanced with a warm heart, a good heart -a sense of responsibility, of concern for the well-being of others.

Fear is the virtue of slaves; but the heart that loveth is willing.

If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.

No matter what you're going through, as long as you have some specific emotion, whether it's positive or negative, it is all stuff that you can use on stage.

Every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward

The internet is like a surround system, a landscape at its most benign, a closed system of surveillance and self-surveillance at its more sinister. Something we can no longer imagine an outside of.

Beyond doubt, there was a certain splendor in pain, which bore a deep affinity to the splendor that lies hidden within strength.