The first time I saw a review of one of my permaculture books was three years after I first started writing on it. The review started with, "Permaculture Two is a seditious book." And I said, "At last someone understands what permaculture's about."

If people want some guidance, I say, just look at what people really do. Don't listen to them that much.

To create a mess in which we perish by our own inaction makes nonsense of our claim to consciousness and morality

People do things which I find quite amazing - things I would never have done and can't understand very well.

If you lend your skills to other systems that you don't really believe in, then you might as well never have lived. You haven't expressed yourself.

I believe humanity is a pretty interesting lot, and they're all really busy doing and thinking interesting things.

You can't cooperate by knocking something about or bossing it or forcing it to do things.