People who record birdsong generally do it very early-before six o'clock-if they can. Soon after that, the invasion of distant noise in most woodland becomes too constant and too loud.

You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing. But when you get there you find it's not that simple.

When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other.

They're all so much afraid of the Council that they're not afraid of anything else.

I distinguish two types of human beings, Love people, who love the sky and the flowers, and Power People, who are essentially sold on naked power.

How do they find out with the experiments?''...one way they can find out a whole lot is to make an animal ill and then try different ways to make it better until they find one that works.''But isn't that unkind to the animal?''Well, I suppose it is...but I mean, there isn't a dad anywhere who would hesitate, is there, if he knew it was going to make [his child] better? It's changed the whole world during the last hundred years, and that's no exaggeration.

Men will never rest till they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.