When you meet chimps you meet individual personalities. When a baby chimp looks at you it's just like a human baby. We have a responsibility to them.

I don't even think of chimps as animals. I think of them as beings.

I was even accused of teaching the chimps how to fish for termites which I mean that would have been such a brilliant coup.

You can't do everything. You can't do health and forestry and agriculture. You've got to focus and do one or the other.

I always loved animals. And when I was ten, I decided I had to go to Africa and live with animals and write books about them.

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

But let us not forget that human love and compassion are equally deeply rooted in our primate heritage, and in this sphere too our sensibilities are of a higher order of magnitude than those of chimpanzees.