I really believed that anything at all was worth writing about if you cared about it enough, and that the best and only necessary justification for writing any particular story was that I cared about it.

The lesson we have yet to learn from dogs, that could sustain us, is that having no apprehension of the past or future is not limiting but liberating.

We do a lot of bird-watching up in the country, but we almost never have a chance to people-watch. There simply aren't enough human beings up here: there is nowhere you can park yourself with a cup of coffee and observe the species on parade.

There will always be vain, obsessive people who want to own rare and extraordinary things whatever the cost; there will always be people for whom owning beautiful, dangerous animals brings a sense of power and magic.

I approach stories as a private educational enterprise: I want to learn about something. I teach myself through research, reporting, and thinking, and then, when I feel like I know the story, I tell it to readers.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Most writing doesn’t take place on the page; it takes place in your head.