Quotes from Sy Montgomery

The self," Blackmore writes, "is just a fleeting impression that arises with each experience and fades away again. . . . There is no inner self," she argues, "only multiple parallel processes that give rise to a benign inner delusion—a useful fiction." She argues that consciousness itself is a fiction. The

Bear-time seems slow to us, perhaps, because we do not have the patience for such a life.

Being friends with an octopus-whatever that friendship meant to her-has shown me that our world, and the worlds around and within it, is aflame with shades of brilliance we cannot fathom

For more than a year and a half, since meeting Athena, since coming to know Octavia and now Kali, each time I've reached into the tanks where we have brought these creatures into our world, I've longed to enter theirs. At last, in the warm embrace of the sea, breathing underwater, surrounded by the octopus's liquid world, my breath rising in silver bubbles like a song of praise, here I am.

Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it.

Unlike the supply of dogs, the supply of good names isn't limitless.

Cambodia is the most heavily mined country on earth, with 4 to 8 million land mines, according to one estimate.

The Buddha denied the existence of persisting selves. At the end of life, the self may dissolve into eternity like salt in the ocean. To some, this might seem distressing. But to lose the lonely self in the ocean of eternity could also be a release, an enlightenment, as the mystics promise.

most of my teachers have been animals. What have animals taught me about life? How to be a good creature.

But Christopher obeyed a higher calling: the intoxicating call of green grass and sunshine, the sweet scent of the earth on one of the last days of summer.

There are some scientists who frown upon such practices, believing that nature should run its course," Jane wrote in an early chapter of The Chimpanzees of Gombe, a scholarly compilation of her first twenty-six years of work. "It seems to me, however, that humans have already interfered to such a major extent, usually in a very negative way . . . with so many animals in so many places that a certain amount of positive interference is desirable.

Always somewhere there is fire or smoke, insistent reminders of the greed consuming the world

The sight of a slender young woman sitting in the anaconda exhibit with a 13-foot-long, predatory reptile snuggling in her lap, the tip of a tail coiled lovingly around one leg, provided dramatic evidence of what Scott and Wilson already knew: "Just about every animal," Scott says—not just mammals and birds—"can learn, recognize individuals, and respond to empathy.

humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness" and that "nonhuman animals, including all birds and mammals, and many other creatures, including octopuses [italics added], also possess these neurological substrates.

the relationship that Jane Goodall has with the chimpanzees of Gombe—and that Dian Fossey had with the mountain gorillas she studied, and Biruté Galdikas has with the wild orangutans of Tanjung Puting—is different. There is a trust between human and animal, a privileged trust unlike any other. The contract for that trust is not written by the human: the animals are the authors of the agreement. The relationship is on the animals' terms.

In all religions, as in all legal systems. people find ways to skirt the rules. We obey the letter of the law without honoring its spirit, and then reassure ourselves of our righteousness.

Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas modeled their approach on Jane Goodall's: they began their studies by relinquishing control. In the masculine world of Western science, where achievement is typically measured by mastery, theirs was an unusual approach.

Watching a pig eat is the ultimate vicarious thrill. Seldom can you take such pleasure in another's joy. Here is someone following his bliss. Pigs are quite literally made for eating—they were bred to eat and get fat fast.

As with a child, to commune with Athena demands a level of openness and intuition greater than that used in the usual discourse between adult humans of a common culture.

If the person was out of the room, the octopus would pull off the magnet on the inside of the tank which, with another magnet on the outside of the tank, held a glass-cleaning tool in place. The outside magnet would then crash loudly to the ground, summoning the human much as one might call a butler by ringing a servant's bell. Ceph keeper Nancy King

The bliss of stroking an octopus's head is difficult to convey to most people, even to animal lovers.

Normally a prolonged stare from a gorilla is a threat. But Digit's gaze bore no aggression. He seemed to say: I know. Dian would later write that she believed Digit understood she was sick.

Love is not changed by death," read the quote by British poet Edith Sitwell, "and nothing is lost, and in the end, all is harvest.

IN a heartbeat, the diver is reborn, swallowed into another reality, transformed from a shambling monster into a being of weightless grace. Is this what happens to the spirit at death when it flies up to heaven?