“What other creature, besides the lion, the tiger, and the whale, can answer Creation in its own language?”

“What did they feed the lions and tigers with in the ark, sir?”

“Every book is an alchemical creation, and I'm thinking back to 1857 when Herman Melville arrived in Greece and saw the Parthenon for the first time sitting there like a great beached whale, its big white bones exposed to the winds. But how can this happen? How can a whale turn into a building? Or into a book? In what way can words be alive?”

“We should've been different breeds. There can only be one lion in a small cage. It's not important if the other lion is sleeping or crouching in the corner. The only important thing is that...it's a lion.”

“But I'll never see any of those fish," said Maxie."Or those whales. Or any lions or tigers. I'm never going to set foot in a rain forest now, am I? I won't even be able to watch old DVD's about them without electricity. What does the future hold? It's like going back to the middle ages. Nobody knowing what was going on beyond their front doorstep. All I'll ever know is this. This little bit of London.”

“Lions and tigers, and bears, oh my! - Dorothy in Wizard of Oz (1939)”