The living environment is the biosphere, the thin layer around the world of living organisms. We're part of that. Our existence is dependent on it in ways that people haven't even begun to appreciate. Our existence depends not just on its existence, but its stability and its richness.

All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.

I think that's my nature, to want to bring people together rather than to try to bombard them into agreement.

Our brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it's a map with constant immediate sensory input.

The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology.

Sstudying ants just quickly became part of me because I was allowed to wander, explore and find things and figure things out myself. And I saw how much was there and what could be done and how I could make a life of it.

In many environments, take away the ants and there would be partial collapses in many of the land ecosystems.