“My peachicken has turned out to be a cock which means that in three years if he survives dogs, foxes, weasels, mink, and internal worms, he will have a tail-spread of four feet. He has one trick: he runs up to anyone holding a cigaret and snatches it away and eats it. He has eaten two hot cigarets so far.”

Flannery O'Connor

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“Looking directly into my eyes he very gently squeezed my fingers: which is how chimpanzees reassure each other.”

Jane Goodall

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“Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass.
And as he stares into the sky, there
are twice as many stars as usual.”

Laura Gilpin

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“In the forbidden recess of the cave, there’s a footprint of an eight-year-old boy next to the footprint of a wolf. Did a hungry wolf stalk the boy or did they walk together as friends?”

Werner Herzog

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“Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I’m going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.”

Aaron Sorkin

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“‘Skunks,’ the squirrel said, ‘are sent to try us.'”

Ralph Hodgson

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“The lambs had nursed and the ewe was lying quiet. One lamb had settled itself on the mother’s back and was a perfect miniature of the old one—they reminded me of a teapot we have, whose knob is a tiny replica of the pot itself.”

E. B. White

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“Owing to my boat’s shape, she could not wear a tall mast without turning over and so her pocket-handkerchief-sized sail could only garner and harvest the tiniest cupfuls of wind; thus, for the most part, she was propelled from point to point with oars, and when we had a full crew on board—three dogs, an owl, and sometimes a pigeon—and were carrying a full cargo—some two dozen containers full of seawater and specimens—she was a back-aching load to push through the water.”

Gerald Durrell

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“I’m proud to call Gloria Steinem a friend, and this advice came from her. While on a field trip in college with her geology class, she discovered a giant snapping turtle that had climbed out of the river, up a dirt path, right to the edge of a road. Worried it would soon be run over, she wrestled the enormous reptile off the embankment and back down to the water. At that moment, her professor walked up and asked what in the world she was doing. With some pride, she told him. He said that the turtle had probably spent a month crawling up that long dirt path to safely lay its eggs in the mud on the side of the road and that she had destroyed all that effort with her ‘rescue.’ Gloria tells this story to illustrate the most important political lesson she ever learned: Always ask the turtle.”

Donna Brazile

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“The way to learn to sail a big boat is first to sail a little one, because the little one is so much harder to manage. The same is true of udders. I can milk a sheep now, with her small cleverly concealed udder, and so I have no hesitancy about going on to a larger and more forthright bag.”

E. B. White

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“If it can’t get away, it ain’t free-range.”

Ted Nugent

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