Frans de Waal Quotes

I blame it on Walt Disney, where animals are given human qualities. People don't understand that a wild animal is not something that is nice to pat. It can seriously harm you.

Any time you're working in the world of taming animals, you're going to get hurt. But it's a rush that we get.

There is that thing about not working with animals and children - I don't think that's true. Although you should never work with donkeys.

I never thought I could learn much from a dog or cat. They sleep when we sleep. They eat when we eat. I'm into observing animals being as wild as they can be in a captive environment.

Some people think that I would be afraid of them, but I'm never, ever afraid of an animal. I just get excited, and some that are dangerous, I think, 'Ooh, what's going to happen?' and things like that.

My dream pet? I like a couple of them, man: monkey, I love dogs. See, tigers, I don't know - I can't be playing with something like that. A monkey, I can handle it. A dog, yeah; I would get a monkey.

Then a neighbor, Mr Smith, had a dairy cow and an couple bulls. He showed me how to bluff a bull.

I had a very famous trainer tell me once, 'You can usually train a wild animal but never tame a wild animal, ever.' They are always going to be wild, no matter what anybody says.

I'm impressed with how professional they are and what they can get an animal to do. I mean, dogs and cats - that's one thing. But when you get into the larger animals, that's a different thing all together.

In 'True Grit,' we had a vulture, a trained vulture... that was a pain and that was - even by vulture standards - probably a stupid vulture, and that was frustrating.

You can't train a penguin to act. You kind of have to take what you get.

I want to get a wolf and an eagle.

I just don't believe people can tame animals.

I love all animals. I have a fascination with fish, birds, whales - sentient life - insects, reptiles.

I was a psych major in college and I actually owned two white lab rats. I had to train them and I took them home so that's just kind of missing for me.

I'm not much for cats. I'm terrified of mice. I've worked a lot with elephants, and they are extremely intelligent and sensitive, and thankfully, they seem to like me. You never want to get on the bad side of an elephant. And never trust a chimp.

With every animal, you have to build its confidence around people because people do some crazy and stupid things.

The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things.

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

We also have 2 horses, but they're not allowed in the house.

I think that there are many aspects to the relationship between humans and animals. But briefly, humans appear to have always been fascinated by them from the time of cave paintings and before.

I probably shouldn't say this about all animals, but at least the farm animals that I've hung out with, and even when I go to the zoo usually, they're like a blank slate. I guess that's why I like them. They're puppets, and you can imagine them being anything you want.

I've had a love of animals from birth. I love getting to know other species. We should all be aware that there is not one thing we can give a wild animal in captivity that they need.

Working with animals is always going to be tough because the animal doesn't know it's an actor.

Chimpanzees have very strong preferences and aversions that are completely personality-linked. The people who are unsuccessful in working with chimpanzees are those who take this personally.