Whoever wants me to talk, I'll come over and tell them about the necessity of preserving the Everglades.

There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth; remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them.

You can't conserve what you haven't got.

You have to stand up for some things in this world.

Elizabeth Rothra's excellent biography of Charles Torrey Simpson restates his philosophies about the intrinsic value of natural ecosystems like the Everglades. No one knew better than he the history of the plants and animals of South Florida or conveyed it with more humor and enthusiasm.

The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slowly moving, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades. It is a river of grass.

There are no other Everglades in the world.