Octavia E. Butler Quotes

I hate zoos.

I've always had a repulsion going in a place where animals are in captivity.

Confining marine animals to tanks and separating them from their families and their natural surroundings, just so people can watch them swim in endless circles, teaches us far more about humans than it does about animals - and the lesson is not a flattering one.

When I was a child, going to a circus with wild animal acts was a rite of passage. These days, it's an act of complicit cruelty.

We poor creatures are born for man's pleasure and amusement, and destined to go through endless sufferings and trials.

I hate to witness animals in captivity - or see circus elephants paraded down the streets. When animals are caged, it's a loss of what they are.

In most countries, it is possible to visit zoos and see bored animals pacing back and forth in cages, with nothing to do but wait for the next meal. Circuses are even worse places for animals. Their living conditions are deplorable, especially in travelling circuses where cages have to be small so that they can go on the road.

Any abuse of animals is the same as abuse of men, women, or children.

Through PETA, we rescue animals in roadside zoos and circuses. They are some of the most abused animals in the country.

All zoos are both beguiling and repellent.

What do we lose without wild animal acts at the circus? Absolutely nothing, except the opportunity to be haunted and heartbroken.

I am not saying that factory farming is the same as the Holocaust or the slave trade, but it's clear that there is an immense amount of suffering in it, and just as we think that the Nazis were wrong to ignore the suffering of their victims, so we are wrong to ignore the sufferings of our victims.

Say no to circuses that exploit and abuse animals.

To think that any animal would be trapped makes me so sad. It's like living in your bedroom for your entire life and never being able to go outside.

When I left the zoo and I sent my chimpanzees to the sanctuary in Florida and imagined what my chimpanzees went through for 18 years, I'm ashamed of myself.

The least I can do is speak out for the hundreds of chimpanzees who, right now, sit hunched, miserable and without hope, staring out with dead eyes from their metal prisons. They cannot speak for themselves.

The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

I wouldn't want to see any animal in pain, no matter what.

I urge you to ask yourself just how honorable it is to preside over the abuse and suffering of animals.

Attempts to defend amusement parks and circuses on the grounds that they 'educate' people about animals should not be taken seriously. Such enterprises are part of the commercial entertainment industry. The most important lesson they teach impressionable young minds is that it is acceptable to keep animals in captivity for human amusement.

There is no excuse for keeping wild animals in amusement parks or circuses. Until our governments take action, we should avoid supporting places where captive wild animals perform for our amusement. If the public will not pay to see them, the businesses that profit from keeping animals captive will not be able to continue.

I think a bird is the worst present you can give somebody because it's guilt-ridden. This animal has the gift of flight, and you put it in a cage and watch it not do that until it dies.

It is up to the public to stop attending these theatrical, and aquatic shows, and circuses with wild animals. The rhetoric about how the animals are happy and well cared for are lies. Don't be swayed by them. The money behind these shows is huge; there is nothing good about them.

I don't think a living being should suffer for the sake of fashion, period. End of story. You don't have to kill an animal just because you want to be hot and fly. And I really stand by that.

The way animals were and are abused appalls me to this very day.