...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a sterile maze, ignoring the fact that if the researcher who designed the maze were to be parachuted into the jungles of Borneo, he or she would be dead of starvation in a week...If I as a human being were told that the standards by which animals are being measured in these experiments are human standards, I would be insulted.

The spark of true poetry flashes when ideas are juxtaposed that no one has yet thought of bringing together.

Children all over the world consort quite naturally with animals. They don't see any dividing line. That is something they have to be taught, just as they have to be taught it is all right to kill and eat them.

Strictly speaking, my interest is not in legal rights for animals but in a change of heart towards animals.

The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.

In my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love.

Words are coin. Words alienate. Language is no medium for desire. Desire is rapture, not exchange.