Quotes from Lawrence Anthony

It is also vital that our relationship with nature and the environment be included in our education systems. This is not longer something cute or nice to do; it is now a singular imperative.

They taught me that all life forms are important to each other in our common quest for happiness and survival. That there is more to life than just yourself, your own family, or your own kind.

There is nothing more energizing than inhaling the tang of wilderness, loamy after rain, pungent with the richness of earth shuddering with life, or taking in the brisk dry cleanness of winter.

The only good cage is an empty cage.

But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those that we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.

Our inability to think beyond our own species, or to be able to co-habit with other life forms in what is patently a massive collaborative quest for survival, is surely a malady that pervades the human soul.

They taught me that all life forms are important to each other in our common quest for happiness and survival. That there is more to life than just yourself, your own family, or your own kind.

In our noisy cities we tend to forget the things our ancestors knew on a gut level: that the wilderness is alive, that its whispers are there for all to hear - and to respond to.

I have never understood the saying 'To think outside the box.' Why would anyone sit inside of a box and then think outside of it. Rather just get out of the box.

There is nothing more energizing than inhaling the tang of wilderness, loamy after rain, pungent with the richness of earth shuddering with life, or taking in the brisk dry cleanness of winter.

It is also vital that our relationship with nature and the environment be included in our education systems. This is not longer something cute or nice to do; it is now a singular imperative.

Every wild thing is in tune with its surroundings, awake to its fate and in absolute harmony with the planet. Their attention is focused totally outwards. Humans, on the other hand, tend to focus introspectively on their own lives too often, brooding and magnifying problems that the animal kingdom would not waste a millisecond of energy upon. To most people, the magnificent order of the natural world where life and death actually mean something has become unrecognizable.

Workable solutions for Earth are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers, or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The wrong way to go about this is to say: Well, researchers have 'proved' that animals only understand fifty words or something similarly absurd. Or that communication with other species is an illusion. Communication is not the preserve of humans; it is the one thing that is truly universal.

So much of our world has been brutally wrested from us; we now have to say enough. No more. Perhaps if enough individuals find out what is actually going on for themselves and start doing something about it, then maybe we can stave off the fast-advancing crisis and create a beautiful. healthy, livable planet where all life flourishes and man is free to rise to greater heights.

Somehow I had become aware that elephants project their presence into an area around them, and that they have control over this, because when they didn't want to be found I could be almost on top of them and pick up nothing at all. A little more experimentation and research and it became clear what was happening.

Wild. If there is one thing I disapprove of it's the unnatural capture and taming of wild animals, whether an elephant or a bird. To me, the only good cage is an empty cage.

This is not just primitive rural superstition; [juju] is practiced by all kinds of people, from illiterate herd boys to multi-dregreed university professors. If you don't understand the power of this belief, you will never truly grasp the rich albeit often incomprehensible spirituality of Africa.

But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.

Communication is not the preserve of humans; it is the one thing that is truly universal.

tangled and eternal as Appalachian feuds – are internecine

The children danced on. They were alive; that is all that mattered. They lived for the moment. They danced when they could, and died when they would.

We don't want you here living with us. You are white, and we do not trust you. You must take your family and go." I could hear the sudden intake of breath. every head in the crowd swiveled, first to the Nkosi, and then to me. I suddenly felt tired. This is what it had all come to;in South Africa, when logic shrivels, the same dreary dinosaurs rear their vicious heads.

Elephants operate on a steadfast principle that all other lifeforms must give way to them, and as far as they were concerned, foreign tourists at a sit down dinner around a swimming pool were no different than a troop of baboons at a swimming hole.