I soon learned that humans can screech even louder than monkeys.

I guess none of us will get through this without some terrible sin. This will be mine.

Love is alcohol.

I like not knowing everything. It makes things more interesting.

Everyone has parents. It’s unavoidable.

I’ve never asked for a promise before, because promises are forever, and forever is an unusually long time.

I hear the fear and hope fighting in my voice.

I try to understand, but all I hear is a river of words, rushing and thundering and pushing me beneath the surface. Now and then a word I know darts up like a sparkling fish, but then it’s all dark moving water again.

Days have a way of slipping past like raindrops in a river.

Our stories don’t make their homes in heavy books. We hold our stories in our songs.

Those are the stars that will guide my path home.

Fun fact, Jackson. You can’t see sound waves, but you can hear music.

A hole can be as real and solid as a boulder or a tree.

Different languages, different food, different customs. That’s our neighborhood: wild and tangled and colorful. Like the best kind of garden.

Trees can’t tell jokes. But we can certainly tell stories. And if all you hear is the whisper of leaves, don’t worry. Most trees are introverts at heart.

Life changes, so you must hope.

Kek finds sun when the sky is dark.

If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance.

There is beauty in stillness and grace in acceptance.

It is a great gift indeed to love who you are.

Besides, the more you listen, the more you learn.

I think I was 9, and my mom ordered them for me from a catalogue. They bred like crazy, and I was selling gerbils all around Michigan. They wrote a story about me in the local newspaper.

I hope kids feel gratitude for what they do have.

At the end of the day, I’d love to see children stop begging their parents to go to the circus. That’s what would make me most happy.

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.

One of my first paid gigs was writing psychology quizzes for ‘YM,’ a monthly teen magazine like ‘Seventeen.’

I was writing at a really young age, but it took me a long time to be brave enough to become a published writer, or to try to become a published writer. It’s a very public way to fail. And I was kind of scared, so I started out as a ghost writer, and I wrote for other series, like Disney ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Sweet Valley’ and books like that.

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.

I think younger readers connect so readily to animal characters because they share a certain vulnerability, particularly when it comes to adult humans, who can be a rather unpredictable lot.

As a species, we can at times be dimwitted and cruel. But we’re also capable of learning.

I grew up in an affluent suburban world and never worried about money until I’d grown up and found wonderfully original ways to screw up my life.

It bothers you, doesn’t it? It bothers you when your victims don’t hate you.

I soon saw why humans prefer to draw an arbitrary line between themselves and other animals. Had humans been used as these animals were used the only appropriate descriptive word would have been ’torture.

The monsters in our valley were destroyed that day. Only a very few survived. But that was all right, because we didn’t need monsters anymore. We had become them.

Love is pretty important. It’s like wearing a suit of armor. It makes you strong.

Be happy for me, and all those who fly free.

You do not know me, but I am a juvenile delinquent. I do not trust authority figures, I probably will not graduate from high school, and statistics say my present rowdiness and vandalism will likely lead to more serious crimes. I am a dangerous fellow, and I am causing mayhem in this store. […] There. I have now shamelessly destroyed the symmetry of this shelf, undoing hours of labor by underpaid store employees. If you could see me, you would be frightened.

I was born in a place humans call central Africa, in a dense rain forest so beautiful, no crayons could ever do it justice.

“Give me liberty or give me death.” A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew before they came to conquer Earth that humans said things like that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew what they were getting into.

Anger is precious. A silverback uses anger to maintain order and warn his troops of danger. When my father beat his chest, it was to say, Beware, listen, I am in charge. I am angry to protect you, because that is what I was born to do. Here in my domain there is no one to protect.

Human humour often consists of pretending to wish something does not really wish.

And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning. I tried to smile. For him.

Mosquitoes are the greatest mass murderers on planet Earth.

Earth is the crossroads of every possible alien. We’re the McDonald’s next to the highway of the galaxy.

And that’s how we ended up discovering the evil horses that threatened all of humanity.

I was Jake’s insurance policy. He thought maybe he wouldn’t have to use me. He hoped, anyway. But down deep he knew, and I knew, and we both hid the truth from the others because Cassie couldn’t let Jake make that decision, and Tobias couldn’t let me, and those two, by loving us, would have screwed everything up. It was a war, after all. A war we had to win.

Right now I would give all the yogurt raisins in all the world for a heart made of ice.

Is there anything sweeter than the touch of another as she pulls a dead bug from your fur?

But hunger, like food, comes in many shapes and colors.

My life is flashing lights and pointing fingers and uninvited visitors. Inches away, humans flatten their little hands against the wall of glass that separates us.The glass says you are this and we are that and that is how it will always be.

They think we’re intelligent. So, Marco, keep quiet. We don’t want them to learn the truth.” Rachel.

But mostly, I remembered what I’ve always believed. What my mom taught me. That while some things are just plain awful, most things in life can be seen either tragic or comic. And it’s your choice. Is life a big, long, tiresome slog from sadness to regret to guilt to resentment to self-pity? Or is life weird, outrageous, bizarre, ironic, and just stupid? Gotta go with stupid. It’s not the easy way out. Self pity is the easiest thing in the world. Finding the humor, the irony, the slight justification for a skewed, skeptical optimism. That’s tough. – Marco, Animorphs #35: The Proposal.

Oh, I’m sure we could talk them into letting us in for nothing,” Marco said. “Just tell them we’re Animorphs.” “Tell them we’re what?” Rachel asked. “Idiot teenagers with a death wish,” Marco said. “Animorphs.” I tried the word out. It sounded okay.

Battles that involve oatmeal are just never going to end up being historic, you know?” Jake went on. “Gettysburg? No major oatmeal involvement. The Battle of Midway? Neither side used oatmeal. Desert Storm? No oatmeal.

Full emergency power to the engines. Ram the Blade ship.

What’s love? Something that lasts a week or a month and that’s all you can except? Or is it just that some loves have a short shelf life? You know, like yogurt: after a week or two they go bad. And how do you recognize the other kind of love, the kind that isn’t like yogurt? The kind that’s more like… I don’t know, like peanut butter, that lasts forever and always tastes good?

Her eyes hold the pale moon in them, the way a still pond holds stars.

I just want to get on a table, dance on someone’s tater tots, and wait for the hall monitor to drag me away.

Human can surprise you sometimes. An unpredictable species, Homo sapiens.

Everything ends eventually. I guess that’s what makes summer so intense, this feeling that it lasts for only a a short while and then it’s back to reality.

Ninety percent of the trouble in this world comes from guys who think they have something to prove.

Anger only gets in the way.

Growing up gorilla is just like any other kind of growing up. You make mistakes. You play. You learn. You do it all over again.

My favorite color is rainbow.

Death’s gruesome face taunts: soulless eyes, crimson grimace. I really hate clowns.

Everyone deserves a shot….and some deserve to be shot.

Humans. Violent but peace-loving. Passionate but cerebral. Humane but cruel. Impulsive but calculating. Generous but selfish. And yet, somehow I knew that they represented the best hope of the galaxy.

With enough time, you can get used to almost anything.

Yes,” he said. “You were strong. You were brave. You were good. You mattered.

When I’m drawing a picture, I feel…quiet inside. 

Pain is life. Life is pain.

About chocolate: This is what laughing tastes like.

Especially when you’re faced with hard times, you need to remember that life is either tragedy or comedy. For me, that’s what the magic is. Life has remarkable, surprising moments that get you through the hard times.

I always tell the truth, Stella replies. Although I sometimes confuse the facts.

Humans. Sometimes they make chimps look smart.

It’s hard to put into words. Gorillas are not complainers. We’re dreamers, poets, philosophers, nap takers.

A good zoo,” Stella said, “is a large domain. A wild cage. A safe place to be. It has room to roam and humans who don’t hurt.” She pauses, considering her words. “A good zoo is how humans make amends.

Homework, I have discovered, involves a sharp pencil and thick books and long sighs.

They think I’m too old to cause trouble.
Old age is a powerful disguise.

Humans waste words. They toss them like banana peels and leave them to rot. Everyone knows the peels are the best part.

You can’t have real pain without real love. You can’t feel grief and loss and hurt without real love. Love is the only way you can ever be really hurt deep down.

I like colorful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings. But any story will do.

Memories are precious … they help tell us who we are.