The beliefs I was raised with - to respect animals and to be aware of nature to understand that we share this planet with other creatures - have had a huge impact on me.

I'm always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient then we should treat them with respect.

Steve Irwin did wonderful conservation work but I was uncomfortable about some of his stunts. Even if animals aren't aware that you are not treating them with respect the viewers are.

Man is the religious animal. He is the only one that's got true religion several of them.

So basically my view is I don't want to support the exploitation of animals and within reason I will do what I can to avoid it but it's not like it's a religion for me. It's not like I consider I'm polluted if somehow some bit of milk or cheese or something passes my lips.

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt if they were able to formulate a religion they would depict the Devil in human form.

I have a great relationship with animals and with children. I get to their level. I try to see the way a child looks at the world it's hugely different.

First and foremost I am a commercial writer and I hope to entertain people. But having said that I'm in love with the relationship between humans and dogs and the more I learned about what our military working dogs are doing I wanted to at least share with people what an important role these animals have in all our lives.

Just about every children's book in my local bookstore has an animal for its hero. But then only a few feet away in the cookbook section just about every cookbook includes recipes for cooking animals. Is there a more illuminating illustration of our paradoxical relationship with the nonhuman world?

The behavior of men to the lower animals and their behavior to each other bear a constant relationship.

A tool is usually more simple than a machine it is generally used with the hand whilst a machine is frequently moved by animal or steam power.

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.

It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbors even to our animal neighbors the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals but he is also the proudest. It is he who invented the sublime art of ruining poetry.

Pet stores just sell their animals.

Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals 'love' them. But those who respect their natures and wish to let them live normal lives love them more.

My parents were very permissive when it came to animals. As long as we earned the money to buy them and built whatever structure it was they were going to live in we could have any kind of pet we wanted. They would have let us have a rhinoceros if we could have afforded it.

Pet lovers know that animals sometimes understand us better than we do and the annals of human sin and desire provide plenty of stories to drive the point home.

I'd say the best is when I was in Africa I saw a hippo in a house. Someone had a pet hippo. And they're meant to be one of the most dangerous animals on the planet and they had one that was sort of just wandering in and out of their house just sort of roaming about.

I love animals and feel very strongly that people should not be allowed to buy a pet if they are not able to look after it.

A pet store is a celebration of dogs' existence and an explosion of options. About cats a pet store seems to say 'Here we couldn't think of anything else.' Cats are the Hanukkah of the animal world in this way. They are feted quietly and happily by a minority but there's only so much hoopla applicable to them.

A kitten is in the animal world what a rosebud is in the garden.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions they pass no criticisms.

Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened.

Every animal has his or her story his or her thoughts daydreams and interests. All feel joy and love pain and fear as we now know beyond any shadow of a doubt. All deserve that the human animal afford them the respect of being cared for with great consideration for those interests or left in peace.

It's not so much about killing an animal it's being at peace and you don't have to worry about all the other things that go on. That's a couple of hours a week that you get to escape but it's nice to do that.

Give your dog or cat respect patience understanding and love. And if you just change to one vegetarian day a week that's a wonderful step that will save animal lives. It means you have chosen something kind instead of something cruel.

Greed is a basic part of animal nature. Being against it is like being against breathing or eating. It means nothing.

No one likes to have less than they had before. That's the nature of the human animal.