“ The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On t… Bret Easton Ellis
“ Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can get. Yann Martel
“ Biodiversity can't be maintained by protecting a few species in a zoo, or by preserving greenbelts or national parks. To function properly, nature needs more room than that. It can maintain itself, ho… Donella Meadows
“ They can't expect anyone to actually pay for a shirt that says, 'I (picture of an elephant) the San Diego Zoo.' What does that even mean? Adam Rex
“ I think so. I want a hamburger and a hot dog. I paused. And ice cream in one of those waffle cones. And— and I want to see the big kitties. Jennifer L. Armentrout
“ Most of the things at the zoo don't look like us. We're one design that works. Our chimp pals sort of look like us, so that's a different take on the same basic design. But fish don't look like us, an… Seth Shostak
“ I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good g… Yann Martel
“ They would probably search for him all over the zoo—the last place he’d been seen. He wondered if any evidence would implicate the hippo. Brandon Mull
“ All zoos, even the most enlightened, are built upon the idea both beguiling and repellent—the notion that we can seek out the wildness of the world and behold its beauty, but that we must first contai… Thomas French
“ I squinted through the big window, a portal to another world, trying to get a better view of the primal love scene before us. All I could see was a mass of wriggling fur and finger-like toes until my… Susan Block
“ Despite all their flaws, zoos wake us up. They invite us to step outside our most basic assumptions. Offered for our contemplation, the animals remind us of nature’s impossibly varied schemes for surv… Thomas French
“ Mommy, Daddy, what are they doing?” a little girl asked, watching the bonobos play. Her forehead and palms were pressed against the glass, as if she thought she could break on through to the other sid… Susan Block
“ Taken together, the narratives of how the animals ended up at Lowry Park revealed as much about Homo sapiens as they revealed about the animals themselves. The precise details—how and where each was b… Thomas French
“ See this abdicated beast, once kingOf them all, nibble his claws:Not anger enough left—no, nor despair—To break his teeth on the bars. Cecil Day-Lewis
