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.

You have to really care about what you say. And if you don't, it will never come out quite right, unless you go into acting, in which case you have to act fast before you realize it is something which you do not believe in.

I love to write - it is a great source of reflection, especially as I continue to meet many new inspiring people.

Words can enhance experience, but they can also take so much away. We see an insect and at once we abstract certain characteristics and classify it - a fly. And in that very cognitive exercise, part of the wonder is gone. Once we have labeled the things around us we do not bother to look at them so carefully. Words are part of our rational selves, and to abandon them for a while is to give freer reign to our intuitive selves.

Chimpanzees, more than any other living creature, have helped us to understand that there is no sharp line between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a very blurry line, and it's getting more blurry all the time.

We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

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