I think the best evenings are when we have messages, things that make us think, but we can also laugh and enjoy each other's company.

Children can change the world.

Some people say, therefore, that violence and war are inevitable. I say rubbish: Our brains are fully capable of controlling instinctive behavior.

There are many people out there (me being one of them) who can vouch that animals have feelings; they feel compassion and love, as well as pain!

When I was a child, the African forest sounded like a dream to me, because it was full of animals and it was wild.

So long as we continued to attach more importance to our own narrow group membership than to the 'global village' we would propagate prejudice and ignorance. There was absolutely no harm in being part of a small group - indeed, with our hunter-gatherer band mentality it gave comfort, provided us with an inner circle of friends who could be utterly trusted, who were absolutely reliable. It helped give us peace of mind. The danger came only from drawing that sharp line, digging that ditch, laying that minefield, between our own group and any other group that thought differently.

There are many animal-welfare groups that sometimes seem to forget that human beings are animals too, that we need to include them in our sphere of compassion.