Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.

You cannot share your life with a dog, as I had done in Bournemouth, or a cat, and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.

For many people who are so lost in their minds, so much involved in their thought processes, the only moments they have when they are not trapped in that is when they are relating to their animal, their pet.

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.

The dog that trots about finds a bone.

It seems strange that bears, so fond of all sorts of flesh, running the risks of guns and fires and poison, should never attack men except in defense of their young. How easily and safely a bear could pick us up as we lie asleep! Only wolves and tigers seem to have learned to hunt man for food, and perhaps sharks and crocodiles.

They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.

The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives.

I really want a pet, and I really love animals.

Pooper scooper? Yeah, I’ve done it a few times. Every once in a while, you have to.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

When you meet chimps you meet individual personalities. When a baby chimp looks at you it’s just like a human baby. We have a responsibility to them.

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

When the dog looks at you, the dog is not thinking what kind of a person you are. The dog is not judging you.

To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

Human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.

I’m not the kind of cat that’s going to cut off an ear if I can’t do something.

My house is run, essentially, by an adopted, fully clawed cat with a mean nature.

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

The part that always shocked me was the inter-community violence among the chimps: the patrols and the vicious attacks on strangers that lead to death. It’s an unfortunate parallel to human behavior – they have a dark side just as we do. We have less excuse, because we can deliberate, so I believe only we are capable of true calculated evil.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he’s gone.

I’ve got four dogs, and I just don’t do dog doo. I’m a diva when it comes to that.

What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

I got a dog with a Napoleon complex. I have a Napoleon complex. We’re small. Anything big that we feel is threatening us, we want to fight. We’re not a pushover.

Having a bunch of cats around is good. If you’re feeling bad, you just look at the cats, you’ll feel better because they know that everything is just as it is. There’s nothing to get excited about. They just know. They’re saviours.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.

Even an animal, if you show genuine affection, gradually trust develops… If you always showing bad face and beating, how can you develop friendship?

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

I’m an introvert… I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky.

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.

Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them.

We’re the only animal that wakes up and doesn’t stretch.

I love pets, especially dogs.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

Chimps are very quick to have a sudden fight or aggressive episode, but they’re equally as good at reconciliation.

Lettin‘ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier ‚n puttin‘ it back in.

Primate and elephant and even pig societies show considerable evidence of care for others, parent-child bonding, solidarity in the face of danger, and so on.

The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you’ll live 10 times longer than if you have 10. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever. It’s truly ridiculous.

Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed.

I learned from my dog long before I went to Gombe that we weren’t the only beings with personalities. What the chimps did was help me to persuade others.

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?

I love dogs, but dogs, you have to be in the country with dogs. I cannot walk a dog on the street.

Dogs never bite me – just humans.

Writers are lampposts and critics are dogs. Ask lampposts what they think about dogs. Does the dog hurt the lamppost?

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.

I’ve seen a look in dogs‘ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

I collect records. And cats. I don’t have any cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.

The chimpanzee study was – well, it’s still going on, and I think it’s taught us perhaps more than anything else to be a little humble; that we are, indeed, unique primates, we humans, but we’re simply not as different from the rest of the animal kingdom as we used to think.

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

It was both fascinating and appalling to learn that chimpanzees were capable of hostile and territorial behavior that was not unlike certain forms of primitive human warfare.

No, I never thought I would like cats.

This morning I lay in the bathtub thinking how wonderful it would be if I had a dog like Rin Tin Tin. I’d call him Rin Tin Tin too, and I’d take him to school with me, where he could stay in the janitor’s room or by the bicycle racks when the weather was good.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.