Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

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

“I saw that animals were important. I saw that plants were even more important. I was also to learn that compared to many of the other species, we weren't important at all except for the damage we do. We do not rule the natural world, despite our conspicuous position in it. On the contrary, it is our lifeline, and we do well to try to understand its rules.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Every dog might wish to be Dog One, but like us, most dogs want membership in the group even more than they want supremacy over others.”

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

“When we became sedentary, lived indoors, and started to raise livestock, we began to see wolves not as occasional fur-bearers or fellow hunters but as robbers.”

“Not even a maggot is an it, and to refer to any animal in that manner is an affectation, an ignorant stab at science-speak.”

“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.”

“People acquire a dog, don't understand it, can't train it, get fed up, and... offer it for adoption, hoping to pass on the problem to somebody else. But nobody wants a problem dog.”

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

“Dogs who live in each other's company are calm and pragmatic, never showing the desperate need to make known their needs and feelings or to communicate their observations, as some hysterical dogs who know only the company of our species are likely to do.”

“The story of cats is a story of meat.”

“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.”

“People didn't think animals thought or remembered or had minds! They most certainly do: any pet owner knows more than a lot of scientists about animals.”

“This was what you did in the '50s: You get married, get a job, put your husband through graduate school, and have two kids - a girl and a boy.”

“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.”

“The dogs and I are a single thing, and thus we share our interests. With them, I'm bigger and better than I am without them, and vice versa.”

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

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