To restate an old law - when a man bites a fish, that's good, but when a fish bites a man, that's bad. This is one way of saying it's all right if man kills an animal, but if an animal attacks man, the act is reprehensible.

I said that the oceans were sick but they're not going to die. There is no death possible in the oceans - there will always be life - but they're getting sicker every year.

A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it.

The sea is the universal sewer.

I was playing when I invented the aqualung. I think play is the most serious thing in the world.

And let us remember too that life, in its exuberance, always succeeds in overflowing the narrow limits within which man thinks he can confine it.

The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters... and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult.