Zoos Quotes

I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.

Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Chops" because that was the name of his dog And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the season And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars And left butts on the pews And sometimes they would burn holes That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it. Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem And he called it "Innocence: A Question" because that was the question about his girl And that's what it was all about And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her That was the year that Father Tracy died And he forgot how the end of the Apostle's Creed went And he caught his sister making out on the back porch And his mother and father never kissed or even talked And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly That's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem And he called it "Absolutely Nothing" Because that's what it was really all about And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist And he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen.

Nature is to zoos as God is to churches.

Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god.


If you have the woman you love, what more do you need? Well, besides an alibi for the time of her husband’s murder.


To find out if she really loved me, I hooked her up to a lie detector. And just as I suspected, my machine was broken.


Fang: “Let them blow up the world, and global-warm it, and pollute it. You and me and the others will be holed up somewhere, safe. We’ll come back out when they’re all gone, done playing their games of world domination." Max: “That’s a great plan. Of course, by then we won’t be able to go outside because we’ll get fried by the lack of the ozone layer. We’ll be living at the bottom of the food chain because everything with flavor will be full of mercury or radiation or something! And there won’t be any TV or cable because all the people will be dead! So our only entertainment will be Gazzy singing the constipation song! And there won’t be amusement parks and museums and zoos and libraries and cute shoes! We’ll be like cavemen, trying to weave clothes out of plant fibers. We’ll have nothing! Nothing! All because you and the kids want to kick back in a La-Z-Boy during the most important time in history!” Fang: “So maybe we should sign you up for a weaving class. Get a jump start on all those plant fibers.” Max: "I HATE YOU!!!" Fang: "NO YOU DOOOOOON'T!!" Voice: "You two are crazy about each other.

I make love with a focus and intensity that most people reserve for sleep.

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little Indian boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and then there were seven. Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six. Six little Indian boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little Indian boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little Indian boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little Indian boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.

Zoo-Wee Mama!

As an animal lover, I don’t like zoos. I feel the only creatures that should be caged behind bars are politicians, lobbyists, and lawyers. And rapists, but I’ve already listed that three times.

I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.

I love being in love, but I also love other things, like not being jealous, overly sensitive, or needy.


Our love was a two-person game. At least until one of us died, and the other became a murderer.


I’m not sure I’d like to be burned. I think I might like to be fed to zoo animals. It would be both environmentally friendly and a lovely treat for the larger carnivores. Could you request that?

We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

Jeez, was that a lion? Please tell me it’s behind bars.” “It’s a zoo, Iggy,” Nudge said, taking his arms and leading him. “Everything’s behind bars.

I went to the zoo once and saw this thing they call an anteater. That was quite enough for me.

You know, sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, just literally 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery, and I promise you something great will come of it.

After dinner or lunch or whatever it was -- with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what -- I said, "Look, baby, I'm sorry, but don't you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let's give it up. Let's just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let's go to the zoo. Let's look at animals. Let's drive down and look at the ocean. It's only 45 minutes. Let's play games in the arcades. Let's go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let's have friends. Let's laugh. This kind of life like everybody else's kind of life: it's killing us.

And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the world and they will be the best animal.

When I draw it, I’m going to make my skin see-through and what you’ll see is that all the animals in the zoo of me have broken out of their cages.

Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That’s why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.

A good zoo," Stella said, "is a large domain. A wild cage. A safe place to be. It has room to roam and humans who don't hurt." She pauses, considering her words. "A good zoo is how humans make amends.

Undressing her was an act of recklessness, a kind of vandalism, like releasing a zoo full of animals, or blowing up a dam.

So what are you doing next Friday night?" "What have you got in mind?" "We could try hitting each other with cars," she suggested cheerfully. "Did that last weekend with Jase," he said with mock regret. "Go to the zoo and throw ourselves to the lions?" she fired back quickly, desperate to keep him focused on her rather than his caved-in chest. "The Romans sort of wore that one out. Got anything original?" "I'll think of something," she warned him. "Can't wait!

She asked if I loved another woman, so I answered honestly and said, “Dinner was great, but I could go for dessert.

The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos. That would be a hell of a zoo. The judge smiled. Yes, he said. Even so.

Your own space, man, it's so important. That's why we were doomed because we didn't have any. It is like monkeys in a zoo. They die. You know, everything needs to be left alone.

Children are not a zoo of entertainingly exotic creatures, but an array of mirrors in which the human predicament leaps out at us.

Some people have no business attending a dignified tea. Gawking as if I belong in a zoo, when they're the ones who have all the manners and the fashion sense of a monkey.

To me, these people were as exotic as animals in a zoo. I'd never seen anything like them. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be one of them or simply live among them taking notes and photographs.

..the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.

It's one of those things a person has to do; sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.

At school, our classroom had a small rodent zoo consisting of two rabbits, three hamsters, a litter of baby gerbils and a guinea pig. At first, I’d thought the teacher was raising snack food, which impressed me, being the first sign of intelligence she’d shown. Soon, though, I’d figured out the animals’ true purpose and left them alone, though I would never understand the appeal of petting and coddling perfectly good food.

So, you're telling me the zoo commissioned you to make a zombie panda in order to avoid a potential international incident.

What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I have about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day. I wish so much that I'd had one last look at him in the lifeboat, that I'd provoked him a little, so that I was on his mind. I wish I had said to him then - yes, I know, to a tiger, but still - I wish I had said, "Richard Parker, it's over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express I couldn't have done it without you. I would like to say it formally: Richard Parker, thank you. Thank you for saving my life. And now go where you must. You have known the confined freedom of a zoo most of your life; now you will know the free confinement of a jungle. I wish you all the best with it. Watch out for Man. He is not your friend. But I hope you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you , that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. What is that hiss? Ah, our boat has touched sand. So farewell, Richard Parker, farewell. God be with you.

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in blurry, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as a starfish loves a coral reef and as a kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fettuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. i will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and as an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of people who talk too much. I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl. I will love you as the taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock.

Seven little crazy kids chopping up sticks; One burnt her daddy up and then there were six. Six little crazy kids playing with a hive; One tattooed himself to death and then there were five. Five little crazy kids on a cellar door; One went all schizo and then there were four. Four little crazy kids going out to sea; One wouldn't say a word and then there were three. Three little crazy kids walking to the zoo; One jerked himself too much and then there were two. Two little crazy kids sitting in the sun; One a took a bunch of pills and then there was one. One little crazy kid left all alone; He went and slit his wrists, and then there were none.

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstitiion will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate. I dont see what that has to do with catchin birds. The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I'd have them all in zoos. That would be a hell of a zoo. The judge smiled. Yes, he said. Even so.

As we neared the water, I pointed out an antique taxidermy shop. "My mom and I used to always go in there," I said. "It's like a zoo, except all the animals are dead.

If I could bronze my love, it’d be worthy of a silver medal.


Just beyond the ticket booth Father had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? An arrow pointed to a small curtain. There were so many eager, curious hands that pulled at the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind it was a mirror.

What's one more meaningless act of violence on that zoo of a planet? It would be appropriate. When in Rome; burn it.

One might even argue that if an animal could choose with intelligence, it would opt for living in a zoo, since the major difference between a zoo and the wild is the absence of parasites and enemies and the abundance of food in the first, and their respective abundance and scarcity in the second. Think about it yourself. Would you rather be put up at the Ritz with free room service and unlimited access to a doctor or be homeless without a soul to care for you?... But I don't insist. I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.

Butterflies??? Naah.. I feel the whole zoo inside me when I see you..

Creating art is a lonely task, which is why we introverts revel in it, but when we have fans looming over us, it becomes loneliness of a different sort. We become cage animals watched by zoo-goers, expected to perform lest the crowd grow bored or angry. It's not always bad. Sometimes we do well, and the cage feels more like a pedestal

The satyr gave me a sympathetic glance. She was shorter than me by a foot, with large hazel eyes that matched her curly hair. I tried to keep my eyes away from her furry lower half, but it was difficult, especially when she smelled faintly like a petting zoo.

The world is a zoo

I'm a dog lover and sex addict. Those two things are unrelated.


He wants me to be myself like a leopard might be herself in a city zoo. Inert, waiting to be fed. Not out in the wild, with tendon in her teeth.

Life is a zoo in a jungle

I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.

That’s a shitty thing to do. It’s almost catlike in its evilness.” “See, your problem is you underestimate dogs. There’s a reason many of us are let up on the couch, while they keep y’all in a zoo.

If you wait until you got time to write a novel, or time to write a story, or time to read the hundred thousands of books you should have already read - if you wait for the time, you will never do it. ‘Cause there ain’t no time; world don’t want you to do that. World wants you to go to the zoo and eat cotton candy, preferably seven days a week.

We live in a culture that has institutionalized the oppression of animals on at least two levels: in formal structures such as slaughterhouses, meat markets, zoos, laboratories, and circuses, and through our language. That we refer to meat eating rather than to corpse eating is a central example of how our language transmits the dominant culture's approval of this activity.

A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum.

The Drake farmhouse was like the chimpanzee enclosure at the zoo when feeding time was late. You know, if all the chimpanzees were undead. And insane.

I had a dream about you. We installed Dr. Robert Jarvik’s artificial heart in a mannequin and brought it to life, only to later kill it because a creature that’s all fake heart and no brain is what’s commonly called a “politician,” and must be destroyed.


Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence . . .

I am in love, and the river is beginning to ice over. I’d better go drown myself before I freeze to death.


Back then, Billy imagined that drops of rain were unanswered prayers falling back to earth.

From what I'd witnessed, Alona Dare was single minded, determined, and ruthless. If high school was a zoo, she was the lioness running the hunt on the hapless tourists who'd wandered into the wrong enclosure.

We had an unspoken love for one another. Probably because she’d never talk to me or return my phone calls or texts.


There's a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit and it goes by the name of London. At the top of the hole sit the privileged few Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo turning beauty to filth and greed... I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders, for the cruelty of men is as wonderous as Peru but there's no place like London!

The more one loves, the heavier the meaning of death becomes, and the deeper the sense of loss. Love and death are not different things, they are the front and back of the same thing.

I rolled my eyes. “I feel like a zoo animal.” Travis watched me for a moment, noted those staring, and then stood up. “I CAN’T!” he yelled. I stared in awe as the entire room jerked their heads in his direction. Travis bobbed his head a couple of times to a beat in his head. Shepley closed his eyes. “Oh, no.” Travis smiled. “get no….sa…tis…faction,” he sang, “I can’t get no….sat-is-fac-tion. ‘Cuz I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…and I’ve tried…,” he climbed onto the table as everyone stared, “I CAN’T GET NO!” He pointed to the football players at the end of the table and they smiled, “I CAN’T GET NO!” they yelled in unison. The whole room clapped to the beat, then. Travis’ sang into his fist, “When I’m drivin’ in my car, and a man comes on the…ra-di-o…he’s tellin’ me more and more…about some useless in-for-ma-tion! Supposed to fire my im-agin-a-tion! I CAN’T GET NO!

She gave me money to buy condoms, and instead I bought a book of baby names. That’s life. That’s love. That’s fiscally irresponsible.


Love is inaudible—until you hear it. And once you do, you’ll never forget the sound of her voice.


Fashion is only different skins for different flavours of you.

All it takes is 20 seconds of insane courage and great things will happen.

I believe that the best way to create good living conditions for any animal, whether it's a captive animal living in a zoo, a farm animal or a pet, is to base animal welfare programs on the core emotion systems in the brain. My theory is that the environment animals live in should activate their positive emotions as much as possible, and not activate their negative emotions any more than necessary. If we get the animal's emotions rights, we will have fewer problem behaviors... All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain.

We don't understand the power of nature and the world because we don't live with it. Our environment is designed to sustain us. We are the domestic pets of a human zoo called civilization.

I bet it breaks your heart to have two of your friends pine for me the way they do," he said proudly. "Luna...and now Scarlet. They can't keep their hands off of me." "It's just because you are foreign to them. It's like if they went to the zoo and stared at the monkeys. You are the monkey.

The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison.

The only time I drink milk is when I drink coffee. I make love the same way—contributing 2% as I just sort of lay there.


The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL——IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate——it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me.

We wanted to blast the world free of history.... picture yourself planting radishes and seed potatoes on the fifteenth green of a forgotten golf course. You'll hunt elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center, and dig clams next to the skeleton of the Space Needle leaning at a forty-five degree angle. We'll paint the skyscrapers with huge totem faces and goblin tikis, and every evening what's left of mankind will retreat to empty zoos and lock itself in cages as protection against the bears and big cats and wolves that pace and watch us from outside the cage bars at night.

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. Knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick sootbleakened by more chimneys than its own, set in a grassless cinderstrewnpacked compound surrounded by smoking factory purlieus and enclosed by ten food steel-and-wire fence like a penitentiary or a zoo, where in random erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, orphans in identical and uniform blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant in the bleak walls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneys streaked like black tears.

It was a huge zoo, spread over numberless acres, big enough to require a train to explore it, though it seemed to get smaler as I grew older, train included. Now it's so small it fits in my head.

And when you come back to Japan next summer, let's have that date or whatever you want to call it. We can go to the zoo or the botanical garden or the aquarium, and then we'll have the most politically correct and scrumptious omelets we can find.

I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. “Emotional” is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man, after a long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.

[I]n Africa I was a member of a family—of a sort of family that the people of your culture haven't known for thousands of years. If gorillas were capable of such an expression, they would tell you that their family is like a hand, of which they are the fingers. They are fully aware of being a family but are very little aware of being individuals. Here in the zoo there were other gorillas—but there was no family. Five severed fingers do not make a hand.

Instead of answering her as soon as he saw her hair grow electric, her face more vivid, her eyes like lightning, her body restless and jerky like a racehorse’s, he retired behind this wall of objective understanding, this gentle testing and acceptance of her, just as one watches an animal in the zoo and smiles at his antics, but is not drawn into this mood. It was this which left Lilith in a state of isolation - indeed, like a wild animal in an absolute desert.

Among your instincts you will find the longing for strong friendships, that the modern evil tries to snuff out. And they have good reason to try this, because every great thing in the past was done through strong friendships between two men, or brotherhoods of men, and this includes all great political things, all acts of political freedom and power. The modern zoo wants you instead to be a weak and isolated "individual".

...In little more than a single century from 1820 to 19450, no less than fifty-nine million human animals were killed in inter-group clashes of one sort or another.... We describe these killings as men behaving "like animals," but if we could find a wild animal that showed signs of acting this way, it would be more precise to describe it as behaving like men.

At the foot of the mountain, the park ended and suddenly all was squalor again. I was once more struck by this strange compartmentalization that goes on in America -- a belief that no commercial activities must be allowed inside the park, but permitting unrestrained development outside, even though the landscape there may be just as outstanding. America has never quite grasped that you can live in a place without making it ugly, that beauty doesn't have to be confined behind fences, as if a national park were a sort of zoo for nature.

People in the West like to shoot things. When they first got to the West they shot buffalo. Once there were 70 million buffalo on the plains and then the people of the West started blasting away at them. Buffalo are just cows with big heads. If you've ever looked a cow in the face and seen the unutterable depths of trust and stupidity that lie within, you will be able to guess how difficult it must have been for people in the West to track down buffalo and shoot them to pieces. By 1895, there were only 800 buffalo left, mostly in zoos and touring Wild West shows. With no buffalo left to kill, Westerners started shooting Indians. Between 1850 and 1890 they reduced the number of Indians in America from two million to 90,000. Nowadays, thank goodness, both have made a recovery. Today there are 30,000 buffalo and 300,000 Indiands, and of course you are not allowed to shoot either, so all the Westerners have left to shoot at are road signs and each other, both of which they do rather a lot. There you have a capsule history of the West.

There should be more natural disasters. I like those because you can't blame anyone. You can't put an earthquake on trial. You can't send a flood to the chair. Look at the fucking zoo I live in. All these bent up little players running around through the ruins saying, "Isn't this groovy and decadent? Cool!" Looking like Death and thinking they're something. I would like to help. I really would. I wonder if the guy at the gun store would give me a discount on the bullets I'll need if I told him what I was up to.

First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done. I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through the clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs. A robe or a crown is there as much one of the wearer's features as a lip or an eye. But I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face. “Is it?...is it?” I whispered to my guide. “Not at all,” said he. “It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.” “She seems to be...well, a person of particular importance?” “Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.” “And who are these gigantic people...look! They're like emeralds...who are dancing and throwing flowers before here?” “Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.” “And who are all these young men and women on each side?” “They are her sons and daughters.” “She must have had a very large family, Sir.” “Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.” “Isn't that a bit hard on their own parents?” “No. There are those that steal other people's children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives.” “And how...but hullo! What are all these animals? A cat-two cats-dozens of cats. And all those dogs...why, I can't count them. And the birds. And the horses.” “They are her beasts.” “Did she keep a sort of zoo? I mean, this is a bit too much.” “Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.” I looked at my Teacher in amazement. “Yes,” he said. “It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough int the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.

...Usually i’d sit back and just enjoy the view for what it was because it’s not often you come across something so ridiculously out of place, a girl like you, on the subway, it’s like spotting a unicorn at the zoo. I reasoned how to pull this off, to get you, to say hi, to ask your name, what your voice sounded like, if you had a cute smile because i like cute smiles. In ten minutes I had a thousand thoughts of you and you had no clue...

Apparently I’m the only one who thinks this is the worst fucking idea since horses,” Garrett says irritably. “Horses?” Logan and Fitzy echo in unison. “Like, horses in general?” Morris asks in confusion. “As in, domesticating them,” he grumbles. “They belong in the wild. End of story.” “Babe,” Hannah hedges in, “are you just saying that because you’re scared of horses?” His jaw drops. “I’m not scared of horses.” She ignores the denial. “Oh my God, it’s all coming together. That’s why you wouldn’t go to the Thanksgiving fair in Philly.” She glances at the rest of us. “My aunt and uncle wanted to take us to this festival thing with all these cool booths and a petting zoo…and horseback riding. He said his stomach hurt.” Garrett visibly clenches his teeth. “My stomach did hurt. I ate too much fucking turkey, Wellsy. Anyway, I don’t like this.

Diez negritos se fueron a cenar; uno se asfixió y quedaron nueve. Nueve negritos estuvieron despiertos hasta muy tarde; uno se quedó dormido y entonces quedaron ocho. Ocho negritos viajaron por Devon; uno dijo que se quedaría allí y quedaron siete. Siete negritos cortaron leña; uno se cortó en dos y quedaron seis. Seis negritos jugaron con una colmena; una abeja picó a uno de ellos y quedaron cinco. Cinco negritos estudiaron Derecho; uno se hizo magistrado y quedaron cuatro. Cuatro negritos fueron al mar; un arenque rojo se tragó a uno y quedaron tres. Tres negritos pasearon por el zoo; un gran oso atacó a uno y quedaron dos. Dos negritos se sentaron al sol; uno de ellos se tostó y sólo quedó uno. Un negrito quedó sólo; se ahorcó y no quedó… ¡ninguno!

Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor surpressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And whi was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago. There was a rumor going the rounds between 1918 and 1920 that the Petrograd Cheka, headed by Uritsky, and the Odessa Cheka, headed by Deich, did not shoot all those condemned to death but fed some of them alive to the animals in the city zoos. I do not know whether this is truth or calumny, or, if there were any such cases, how many were there. But I wouldn't set out to look for proof, either. Following the practice of the bluecaps, I would propose that they prove to us that this was impossible. How else could they get food for the zoos in those famine years? Take it away from the workibg class? Those enemies were going to die anyway, so why couldn't their deaths support the zoo economy of the Republic and thereby assist our march into the future? Wasn't it expedient? That is the precise line the Shakespearean evildoer could not cross. But the evildoer with ideology does cross it, and his eyes remain dry and clear.

Peter Parker: I mean, what I do sometimes requires violence, but I'm not a violent man, I'm really not. But I just-- Mary Jane: You wanted to deck her. Peter: Twice. And I hate feeling that way. Why is it that people feel the need to take whatever little authority they have and shove it down your throat? And the smaller the authority, the bigger the shove. Aunt May: It offends you, doesn't it? Peter: Yeah, it does. Aunt May: Why? Peter: I -- What do you mean, why? Aunt May: Why does it offend you? Peter: Shouldn't it? Aunt May: If a lion broke out of its cage at the zoo, and bit you, it would hurt, sure, and you'd be upset, of course. But would you be offended? Peter: No, of course not. Aunt May: Why? Peter: Because that's the nature of a lion. Aunt May: Some people by nature are kind and charitable. You could say that some people, including at least one person at this table, are by their nature heroes. Ben always reminded me that we each contain all the nobler and meaner aspects of humanity, but some get a bigger dose than others of one thing or another. Some are petty, and mean, and uncharitable. That's their nature. You can hope for better, even try to lead them to be and you may even succeed. But when they behave badly, it's right to be upset by it, or hurt by it, but you can be no more offended by it than you can when a lion bites you.

A qui écris-tu? -A toi. En fait, je ne t'écris pas vraiment, j'écris ce que j'ai envie de faire avec toi... Il y avait des feuilles partout. Autour d'elle, à ses pieds, sur le lit. J'en ai pris une au hasard: "...Pique-niquer, faire la sieste au bord d'une rivière, manger des pêches, des crevettes, des croissants, du riz gluant, nager, danser, m'acheter des chaussures, de la lingerie, du parfum, lire le journal, lécher les vitrines, prendre le métro, surveiller l'heure, te pousser quand tu prends toute la place, étendre le linge, aller à l'Opéra, faire des barbecues, râler parce que tu as oublié le charbon, me laver les dents en même temps que toi, t'acheter des caleçons, tondre la pelouse, lire le journal par-dessus ton épaule, t'empêcher de manger trop de cacahuètes, visiter les caves de la Loire, et celles de la Hunter Valley, faire l'idiote, jacasser, cueillir des mûres, cuisiner, jardiner, te réveiller encore parce que tu ronfles, aller au zoo, aux puces, à Paris, à Londres, te chanter des chansons, arrêter de fumer, te demander de me couper les ongles, acheter de la vaisselle, des bêtises, des choses qui ne servent à rien, manger des glaces, regarder les gens, te battre aux échecs, écouter du jazz, du reggae, danser le mambo et le cha-cha-cha, m'ennuyer, faire des caprices, bouder, rire, t'entortiller autour de mon petit doigt, chercher une maison avec vue sur les vaches, remplir d'indécents Caddie, repeindre un plafond, coudre des rideaux, rester des heures à table à discuter avec des gens intéressants, te tenir par la barbichette, te couper les cheveux, enlever les mauvaises herbes, laver la voiture, voir la mer, t'appeler encore, te dire des mots crus, apprendre à tricoter, te tricoter une écharpe, défaire cette horreur, recueillir des chats, des chiens, des perroquets, des éléphants, louer des bicyclettes, ne pas s'en servir, rester dans un hamac, boire des margaritas à l'ombre, tricher, apprendre à me servir d'un fer à repasser, jeter le fer à repasser par la fenêtre, chanter sous la pluie, fuire les touristes, m'enivrer, te dire toute la vérité, me souvenir que toute vérité n'est pas bonne à dire, t'écouter, te donner la main, récupérer mon fer à repasser, écouter les paroles des chansons, mettre le réveil, oublier nos valises, m'arrêter de courir, descendre les poubelles, te demander si tu m'aimes toujours, discuter avec la voisine, te raconter mon enfance, faire des mouillettes, des étiquettes pour les pots de confiture..." Et ça continuais comme ça pendant des pages et des pages...

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock. I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.