An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment...

If I were beginning my career today, I don't think I would take the same direction. Television is at a crossroads at the moment. And although I am not up to date technologically, I suspect that somewhere out there people are conveying things about natural history by means other than television, and I think if I were beginning today, I'd be there.

Nothing in the natural world makes sense - except when seen in the light of evolution

The fundamental issue is the moral issue.

I would love to go and see the Himalayan Mountain Kingdoms. There are very few left now. I would loved to have gone to Tibet and Nepal. And there are still parts of central Asia that are utterly unexplored.

I think a major element of jetlag is psychological. Nobody ever tells me what time it is at home.

Very few species have survived unchanged. There's one called lingula, which is a little shellfish, a little brachiopod about the size of my fingernail, that has survived for 500 million years, but it's survived by being unobtrusive and doing nothing, and you can't accuse human beings of that.