“I never wanted to be a scientist per se. I wanted to be a naturalist.”

Trees are living beings. And they have their own personalities. There are the young, eager saplings, all striving with each other. If you put your cheek against one of those, you almost sense the sap rising and the energy.

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

From the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back.

Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.

We can’t leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world’s people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.

Thousands of people who say they ‘love’ animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terrors of the abattoirs

He had instigated a detailed study of the limb bones and locomotor patterns of a number of modern antelopes; the functions of varying bone structures of their legs could then be ascertained. Then, from the structure of fossil antelope bones reconstructed their movements.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.

The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves

There is a powerful force unleashed when young people resolve to make a change.

If we do not do something to help these creatures, we make a mockery of the whole concept of justice.

We find animals doing things that we, in our arrogance, used to think was just human .

One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.

It was a reward far beyond my greatest hopes.

I’d like to be remembered as someone who really helped people to have a little humility and realize that we are part of the animal kingdom, not separated from it.

Since I started my career very early, I have gone through the rigmarole of experiencing successes and failures.

A performer learns with experience and with age. I did not know the future when I left home and started out to begin my career: I started qawaali; then I met Peter Gabriel and was exposed to a lot of new ideas.

I find it difficult enough as it is to keep some kind of normality in my life. I enjoy this experience, but I don’t know where I’m going to take my career.

Any article’s good. Long as it’s publicity, I think that’s all that matters. I think it’s advancement for my career.

From a very early age, I made my decisions based on careers that I admire. The one thing that all the actresses I love have in common is that they have diversity in their careers.

You know, a lot of girls go out with me just to further their careers…damn anthropologists.

Planning a career, I always find a tricky thing, because I don’t have much of a plan, really.

A career in sport is almost impossible to manage without the support, and guidance, and reassurance of family and friends. During tough times, and there always are, this is whom we go to.