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Capture of a wild animal is invariably traumatic.

Probably we never fully credit the interdependence of wild creatures, and their cognizance of the affairs of their own kind.

Living wild species are like a library of books still unread. Our heedless destruction of them is akin to burning the library without ever having read its books.

I blame it on Walt Disney, where animals are given human qualities. People don't understand that a wild animal is not something that is nice to pat. It can seriously harm you.

I don't eat animals. I rescue strays and take injured pigeons to the wildlife rehab. I carry spiders and wasps outside in a cup covered with a 3x5 card. It would only follow that I'd take pause when contemplating the abrupt and apparently brutal ending of a tiny human being's life, or even a potential human being's life.

I mean, it is an extraordinary thing that a large proportion of your country and my country, of the citizens, never see a wild creature from dawn 'til dusk, unless it's a pigeon, which isn't really wild, which might come and settle near them.

All over the world the wildlife that I write about is in grave danger. It is being exterminated by what we call the progress of civilization.

My mother saved hundreds of animals in her life. Wherever she encountered and injured or needy or abandoned animal, she brought it home.

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken!