Herpetology Quotes

They're one of - crocs and snakes are two of my favorite animals. They're so good.

I actually like snakes! When I was young, I was a boy scout nature camp counselor, and one of our projects was collecting snakes and creating an environment for them, so I'm quite familiar with snakes and think they're fantastic creatures.

I've always wanted to do a shoot with snakes - big snakes, like pythons.

I love snakes.

I always had an affinity for lizards. I've always felt somewhat close to them. They're reptiles. I find myself feeling somewhat reptilian at times.

Snakes are just very instinctive to me. I've been playing with snakes since before I could walk. It doesn't matter where or what it is, from the biggest to the most venomous.

Luckily there were no venomous snakes around Hoosick, N.Y., so I amassed quite a collection of milk snakes, garters, ribbons and ring-necked snakes.

My father collected turtles when he was young. My parent's wedding album, there's two pictures of them getting married and the rest are just pictures of turtles. I remember they had Galapagos tortoises that they had somehow imported illegally and a bunch of other turtles too. I like the animals themselves. They're so self-possessed and self-contained and there's something wise and mysterious about them. I also like that they are prehistoric animals.

My favorite species to study would be Cobras and King Cobras which are two different families. They're very intelligent, and they're beautiful looking animals. Where they come from are countries and regions which I spend a lot of time in - South East Asia and India, those are places I go to fairly often, and so the cobras are my main interest. It's not a snake I can maintain, but when I see them in zoos and what not, I find them interesting.

Reptiles and amphibians are sometimes thought of as primitive, dull and dimwitted. In fact, of course, they can be lethally fast, spectacularly beautiful, surprisingly affectionate and very sophisticated.

As a boy, I was a member of a club run by the famous reptile showman Ross Allen, and the club sent its members pseudoscientific papers mimeographed on construction paper with a three-hole punch.

I've worked with pythons and such in a couple of movies, and I had to wrangle around, but I was okay. Still, if I'm out in the country or something, I'm still spooked by them.