Fossey Quotes & Sayings

Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization, I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.' — Dian Fossey

I feel more comfortable with gorillas than people. I can anticipate what a gorilla's going to do, and they're purely motivated. — Dian Fossey

Gorillas are the largest of the great apes. A mature male may be six feet tall and weigh 400 pounds or more; his enormous arms can span eight feet. — Dian Fossey

I had this great urge ... I had it the day I was born. Some may call it destiny. My parents and friends called it dismaying. — Dian Fossey

Pink is not a color it is an "ATTITUDE". — Bridget Of Sweden

Active conservation [of gorillas] involves simply going out into the forest, on foot, day after day after day, attempting to capture poachers, killing-regretfully-poacher dogs, which spread rabies within the park, and cutting down traps. — Dian Fossey

It's very important not to talk down to kids, and to give them something which they think is quite grown-up and hardcore. Kids themselves are very good at self-censoring. If they don't like something, if they think it's too strong for them, they'll simply stop reading. That's the thing about a book, you can't force someone to read it ... I think there's a lot in my books about friendship, leadership, about society and how it works, how we learn to live with each other and what skills do we need to make a viable society. Kids don't need to know any of that, they just want someone to be eaten again. — Charlie Higson

The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow — Dian Fossey

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future. — Dian Fossey

It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes. — Dian Fossey

The extraordinary gentleness of the adult male with his young dispels all the King Kong mythology. — Dian Fossey

Life is so simple, really. Think through what people want, watch what others fail to give them, and provide it. Then bill'em. — Stuart Wilde

None of the three great apes is considered ancestral to modern man, Homo sapiens, but they remain the only other type of extant primate with which human beings share such close physical characteristics. From them we may learn much concerning the behavior of our earliest primate prototypes, because behavior, unlike bones, teeth, or tools, does not fossilize. — Dian Fossey

Southern slave economy, sharecroppers after that, coal miners after that, and machinists and millworkers during more recent times. — J.D. Vance

He is tolerated by the gods, perhaps because his stratagems and plans save them as often as they get them into trouble.

Loki makes the world more interesting but less safe. He is the father of monsters, the author of woes, the sly god. — Neil Gaiman

I'm the opposite of jealous. — Eli Manning

I've always been a stubble man; I don't do clean-shaven. — Jonas Armstrong

[About gorillas] You take these fine, regal animals. How many (human) fathers have the same sense of paternity? How many human mothers are more caring? The family structure is unbelievably strong. — Dian Fossey

Yes. I do about 70 shows a year, in the past year I've been to Italy, Australia, Japan, China, just about everywhere. I do it because I love singing. The money is a bonus. — Katherine Jenkins

Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action. — W. Edwards Deming

One of the basic steps in saving a threatened species is to learn more about it: its diet, its mating and reproductive processes, its range patterns, its social behavior. — Dian Fossey

There are times when one cannot accept facts for fear of shattering one's being. As I listened to Ian's news, all of Digit's life, since my first meeting with him as a playful little ball of black fluff ten years earlier, passed through my mind. From that moment on, I came to live within an insulated part of myself. — Dian Fossey

Alarm clocks are the bane of humanity. Sleep inertia, the decline in motor dexterity, subjective feeling of grogginess, and impaired state of awareness and mental performance is normal after awakening from even a light sleep. Scientific studies reveal that abruptly awakening from a deep sleep amplifies the severity and duration of sleep inertia. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I shall never forget my first encounter with gorillas. Sound preceded sight. Odor preceded sound in the form of an overwhelming, musky-barnyard, humanlike scent. The air was suddenly rent by a high-pitched series of screams followed by the rhythmic rondo of sharp pok-pok chestbeats from a great silverbacked male obscured behind what seemed an impenetrable wall of vegetation. — Dian Fossey

Fossey, Fossey, you cranky difficult strong-arming self-destructive misanthrope, mediocre scientist, deceiver of earnest college students, probable cause of more deaths of the gorillas than if you had never set foot in Rwanda, Fossey, you pain-in-the-ass saint, I do not believe in prayers or souls, but I will pray for your soul, I will remember you for all of my days, in gratitude for that moment by the graves when all I felt was the pure, cleansing sadness of returning home and finding nothing but ghosts. — Robert M. Sapolsky

Avoid self-pity by taking responsibility for everything that happens to you, even if somebody else is at fault. By taking responsibility, I don't mean play doormat. I mean, repair yourself. Move forward. Move on. Then, only then, see if you can wrangle some empathy. — Augusten Burroughs

The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people. — Dian Fossey

And if you do see any pirates, I don't want you to pick up any rough manners from them. Do you understand? — Alexander McCall Smith

Clovis Fossey has asked if you would send the society a copy of your prizewinning essay on chickens ... I'd like to read it too, chickens being the reason I fell off a henhouse roof. They'd chased me there. How they all came at me with their razor lips and back to back eyeballs. People don't know how chickens can turn on you, but they can, just like mad dogs. I didn't keep hens until the war came, but then I had to, but I am never easy in their company. — Mary Ann Shaffer

It is true that there comes a time when I do literally dream about McDonald's. I dream of supermarkets and drug stores, potato chips and the Sunday morning paper. — Dian Fossey

I have no friends. — Dian Fossey

[My] excursions provided a unique opportunity for observing [the gorillas' behavior] in their natural habitat ... Then, all too soon, the infants were demanded for their trip to the zoo ... [H]appily the babies did not know they would never see their mountain home again — Dian Fossey

I actually taught perceptual psychology at N.Y.U. when I was younger. I was interested in the aesthetic impulse in lower primates. But what really interested me in Dian Fossey was that she made a difference - she saved the gorillas. — Arne Glimcher

As countries get rich they start increasing education and the very educated people tend to not like trial and error, because they think they're obligated to use the body of knowledge they have. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I had a wonderful contact, especially with Uncle Bert who was an angel and led the whole group over to my side of a steep ravine I could not cross to get over to them. — Dian Fossey