“Like apes, we breed, sleep, and die. Yet like God we say, "I am." We are ontological oxymorons.”

“We admit that we are like apes, but we seldom realize that we are apes.”

“And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives,Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake,How if our waking life, like that of sleep,Be all a dream in that eternal lifeTo which we wake not till we sleep in death”

“We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated - defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Still, to cease living is unacceptable.”

“In most ways, Mibs, we Beaumonts are just like other people...We get born, and sometime later we die. And in between, we're happy and sad, we feel love and we feel fear, we eat and we sleep and we hurt like everyone else.—Momma”

“In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes.”