“In the span of three hundred years nationwide, but only seventy years in the West, hunters in the United States had managed to kill off the wild prey of gray wolves; settlers, farmers, and ranchers had occupied most of the wolves' former habitat; wolfers had poisoned them; bounty hunters had dynamited their dens and pursued them with dogs, traps, and more poison; and finally, the government had stepped in and, primarily at the livestock industry's behest, quite literally finished them off.”

“Quipped one frustrated Colorado rancher in the early 1920s, "Wolves have all been trapped at, shot at, and poisoned at so long that they can damn near speak English!"...To the specter of the rancher, the most we can say today is that wolves have yet to learn the language of humans, while we, if only in the most primitive fashion, have begun listening to theirs.”

“But Olson had learned that being a wolf advocate wasn't easy, for "the politics of wolf preservation and the science of studying wolves is more vicious and complicated than any wolf pack I've had the pleasure of studying.”

“Wolves, like all living things, had been created by God with "a purpose," declared Shoemaker, and thus have "an inherent right to live, to be protected by mankind.”

“Deer needed predators to trim their numbers and keep them from destroying their environment, he said. To do away with predators such as wolves was tantamount to "ecological murder," with far-reaching consequences both to deer and their habitat. "I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer.”

“Despite its misrepresentations, Mowat's book shattered many myths and untruths that had hung about the wolf's neck for centuries. Mowat's wolves weren't savage brutes, but instead were playful and social creatures, good and protective parents --animals entirely ill-deserving of the treatment they had received.”

“As top predators, both humans and wolves evolved the most successful means to capitalization on the continent's wealth of prey. In short, by traveling parallel paths, the two species arrived that the same solution of how not only to survive, but flourish.The resemblance is haunting.”