K. A. Applegate Quotes

There are five kinds of great apes: bonobos, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and the one which people always think of last: Humans!

Chimps are far too much human to be my favorite animal.

The fact that the apes exist and that we can study them is extremely important and makes us reflect on ourselves and our human nature. In that sense alone, you need to protect the apes.

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.

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.

If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence.

… monkeys …

My study of the wild gorilla is not yet finished, and even when it is complete, it will contribute only a small part toward man's understanding of his closest animal relatives, the great apes. But one conclusion is already clear: The gorilla is one of the most maligned animals in the world.

There was no way that I could explain to dogs, friends, or parents my compelling need to return to Africa to launch a long-term study of the gorillas.

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.

One of the things we found out as we filmed with people who dealt with chimps, and with all animals, and it's really incredible, is their levels of intelligence that we don't recognize right away.

From the lowest animals of which we can affirm intelligence up to man this type of intellect is found.

If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart.

How like us is that filthy beast the ape.

The chimpanzees' closest relative is not the gorilla but humans.

I’ve looked monkeys in the eye, and I see a relative.

Homo Sapiens

I think that intelligence is such a narrow branch of the tree of life - this branch of primates we call humans. No other animal, by our definition, can be considered intelligent. So intelligence can't be all that important for survival, because there are so many animals that don't have what we call intelligence, and they're surviving just fine.

I was a monkey child. I was like a clown.

When it was time to meet a chimpanzee, I got very, very anxious because they have the strength of ten men, so I hear.

I've seen a few wild grizzly bears, mostly in Alaska and British Columbia, and always from a distance. But each grizzly I've caught sight of was as fearsome and sublime as the last. You never get used to their raw power and massive bodies, or the mysterious intelligence in their dark, close-set eyes.

When I write about animals, I use anthropological techniques and the language you would use for a person. You don't have to anthropomorphize animals, just acknowledge their individuality.

It really sucks to be the number two intelligent species on this planet; you can just ask gorillas.

And then I got to go to Singapore and play with some orangutans, and the mom was letting me hold the baby. They just look at you with these big eyes, so sweet and open. Like the soul is right there - it almost scares you, you know?

In the early '50s, my great-grandmother and grandfather raised a baby gorilla named Bobo who wore clothes and played with the neighborhood kids.