I had never been able to believe that God would give us poor frail humans only one chance at making it -- that we would be assigned to some kind of hell because we failed during one experience of mortal life. ... So the concepts of karma and reincarnation made logical sense to me.

I don't think that faith, whatever you're being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don't want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There's so much mystery. There's so much awe.

Terrorism is fueled by hate. The tragedy is that there are countless young children who are being taught to hate. Terrorism is usually fueled also by poverty.

It would be absolutely useless for any of us to work to save wildlife without working to educate the next generation of conservationists.

Even in chimps there is true altruistic behaviour; behaviour that doesn't fit into the sociobiological model that says you either help a close relative and thereby your own genes, or you help somebody else now in return for their help in the future. When a very high-ranking male chimpanzee rescues a little orphan, saving his life, that kind of explanation doesn't work.

I see that within each human being there are two extremes: there's the loving, the passionate, altruistic side that has evolved with us, and then there's the violent, brutal side that has evolved with us. The question for each individual is: which side is going to come out on top?

It's up to us to save the world for tomorrow: it's up to you and me.