“To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpath...”

“We fly, but we have not 'conquered' the air. Nature presides in all her dignity, permitting us the study and the use of such of her forces as we may understand. It is when we presume to intimacy, h...”

“There's an old adage," he said, "translated from the ancient Coptic, that contains all the wisdom of the ages -- "Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die.”

“(On WWI:)A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili or in English, and, because of this shooting, whole countries were at war. It seemed a laborious method of ret...”

“We swung over the hills and over the town and back again, and I saw how a man can be master of a craft, and how a craft can be master of an element. I saw the alchemy of perspective reduce my world...”

“There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest, and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There ...”

“He's a man," Themla said."I guess that explains it.""Hairy, Neanderthalic," Thelma said, "perpetually half-crazed from excessive levels of testosterone, plagued by racial memories of the lost glory...”

“Hermy, when she was not otter-hunting, could be very sarcastic, and he had a clear month of Hermy in front of him, without any otter-hunting, which, so she had informed him, was not possible in Aug...”

“They dived into the ocean of shadow and smog, adding to it with the fumes of their own aircraft. The goggles were useless now, but Jacob kept them on, in case there might be some break in the murky...”

“He reminded her of the way male lions look sad, as if their nobility is a terrible weight.”

“As we neared the watering hole, I saw lions sprawled at the base of the acacia tree, relaxing in the shade. Many, many lions. If a group of lions is normally called a pride, then this was, at the v...”

“Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.”

“If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow.”

“There are only 2 paths to happiness in life. Utter Stupidity or Exceptional Wealth.”