I shouldn't have named the chimps. It wasn't scientific. I didn't know. I knew nothing. And worse sin of all was that I was ascribing to them emotions like happiness, sadness and so forth.

The best relationship you can have with a chimpanzee is total mutual trust.

We, as humans, have actually developed a sense of social responsibility. We have gone beyond our basic instincts. We can and we do. This is what sets us apart from the chimps. They are extremely brutal and hostile. Your next door neighbor is to be killed unless she is a juicy young female, who hasn't yet had her first baby, in which case you want her.

I think I'd like to be remembered as someone who really helped people to have a little humility and realize that we are part of the animal kingdom not separated from it.

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

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

I do not want to discuss evolution in such depth, however, only touch on it from my own perspective: from the moment when I stood on the Serengeti plains holding the fossilized bones of ancient creatures in my hands to the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.