Zoo Education Quotes

I have a complicated relationship with the zoo; maybe everyone does. It's so wonderful and so sad.

I have spent my entire life living in a zoo, which is pretty crazy. Not many kids get to say that, and it took me until I was about three years old to realize that we didn't just come to the zoo every day, that we actually lived here.

What's the reality of being inside a zoo, for the animals and for the people who love and care for those animals? There's a lot of joy, and there's a lot of loss.

When I was little, my parents took me to the San Diego Zoo. I was about 5 years old, and I got a tour of the zoo that hardly anybody else has ever had.

All zoos are both beguiling and repellent.

I do love nature, but I don't suppose I'd spent more time in zoos as a child than anyone else!

I have the best daddy in the whole world, and I will miss him every day. When I see a crocodile, I will always think of him, and I know that Daddy made this zoo so everyone could come and learn to love all the animals.

I always said it was to be dumb enough to do what Marlon Perkins said to do.

Enrichment happened to be my favorite time of day in the Children's Zoo, since it offered relief from the security-guard-esque standing around that makes up most of a zookeeper's day.

For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.

Writing is the main gig and teaching and performing are sidelines, an excuse for not writing more. Working on a novel and on an opera make me seriously want to retire and find a volunteer job as a docent at the zoo explaining to schoolchildren where frogs go in the winter.

Zoos have always fascinated me. What child hasn't wondered what would happen if all the animals escaped from the zoo? Or what would happen if they got caught in an enclosure?