ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS

We fill the woods with invasive primates camouflaged to look like piles of leaves who sneak around, sprinkling estrus doe urine and manipulating gadgets that sound like antlers clashing.

If you don't have manufactured items or anything we think of as 'civilization,' then you're living according to your species.

People are perfectly glad to accept the idea that dogs love us, so they must be able to love each other.

Veterinarians are essential allies to the millions of us who experience the human-animal bond.

Hundreds of species are facing extinction due to human impacts on the environment.

Dogs are a window on the natural world.

Every day, the humane societies execute thousands of dogs who tried all their lives to do their very best by their owners. These dogs are killed not because they are bad but because they are inconvenient. So as we need God more than he needs us, dogs need us more than we need them, and they know it.

Primates feel pure, flat immobility as boredom. But dogs feel it as peace.

We may never find a way to live in suburbia with deer as we do with raccoons, say, or squirrels. So for this reason, it's very important that we make sure always to save enough wild or open land so that they can live in their normal manner.

From the very dawn of time until now and well into the future... human-animal companionship is at the very core of our instincts not only for mutual survival, but mutually rewarding relationships.

We are surely the primary agent of death for all members of the cat tribe. For many if not most cat species, our depredations must surpass accidents, disease, and even starvation by a considerable margin.

Besides individual things like thunder and gunshots, what dogs fear most is not belonging, being alone.

The story of cats is a story of meat.

I always thought of deer as solitary animals that weren't very interesting. But my goodness, that was very wrong. The big eye-opener for me was that they're social. They have family groups.

All the members of the dog family - domestic dogs, wolves, coyotes, dingoes - are very aware of territory. A group must control its own territory - you can't have others taking it from you, because then you won't have enough food.

Animals need to understand other species, if only to prey on them or escape from them.

When I write about animals, I use anthropological techniques and the language you would use for a person. You don't have to anthropomorphize animals, just acknowledge their individuality.

I don't mind aging - I'm glad to be aging. I'll never die young.

Once you're known to be an alcoholic, that's how many people identify you, which could be a reason not to talk about it.

We used to go in the woods by ourselves, and you can't help noticing the world then, especially animals. People used to know a lot about the natural world, especially in the country.

I would like to visit a dog's mind to know what he's thinking and feeling.

Cats and dogs are a very good window into the natural world: a chance to see how another species lives and deals with its problems, what they like and what they don't like.

Many expressions of a cat's feelings seem deeply related to the capture of live prey.

When I was very young, my nanny was a big Newfoundland dog... whose task was to keep me from drowning.

To sit idly, not doing, merely experiencing, comes hard to a primate.