Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.

My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition.

Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.

Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness--how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!

We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe?

No one dies of nausea, but it can seriously sap the will to live.

What was it about us, as humans, that drove us to make apologies for beautiful things?

Control.... is not what we need.What we need is to bend to the tempest like pine and palm trees - flexible, adaptive, attuned, yet fully rooted in our principles.

The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.

Michael O'Sullivan was my great friend. But I don't ever remember telling him that. The words that are spoken at a funeral are spoken too late for the man who is dead.

There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.

I wish I would have kept the big picture in my mind at all times - what it most important? That my kids seek to please God and learn about their Creator.

Three things trust and cherish well- The horse on which you ride, The beast that guards and watches, And your shield-mate at your side.

You can't get a dolphin. What are you gonna do, like, put it in your pool?

The constitution of the United States is the result of the collected wisdom of our country.

Don't give up. Don't listen to these foolish critics that are so small minded they don't get it tonight.