Male chimpanzees have an extraordinarily strong drive for dominance. They're constantly jockeying for position.

Most exotic animals are not particularly interested in people, which makes it hard to provoke them. Human-rearing gets them used to and sometimes imprinted on humans, which makes them potentially dangerous.

The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health, basically.

In Africa, we have the bush meat trade, which means that, on a very large scale, animals are being killed in the forests and sold in the cities as a luxury food.

It is not only visitors to the zoo who are fascinated but uneasy in the presence of chimpanzees; the same is true of scientists. The more they learn about these great apes, the deeper our identity crisis seems to become. The resemblance between humans and chimpanzees is not only external. If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee’s eyes, an intelligent, self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?

If I were God, I'd work on the reach of empathy.

Female bonobos form a strong sisterhood. They rule through female solidarity.