Elizabeth Marshall Thomas > Quotes

“I saw that animals were important. I saw that plants were even more important. I was also to learn that compared to many of the other species, we weren't important at all except for the damage we do. We do not rule the natural world, despite our conspicuous position in it. On the contrary, it is our lifeline, and we do well to try to understand its rules.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons from the Natural World

“Then, too, the Ju/wa men had an inherent, almost natural bravery that everyone took entirely for granted. They hunted the world’s most dangerous game with quarter-ounce arrows, they stood off lions and dealt with strangers, all without a shred of the bravado or machismo that so characterizes the men of other societies, including ours. The Ju/wa men simply did what men do without making anything of it, and didn't even think of themselves as brave.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Old Way: A Story of the First People

“Death is the price we pay for life.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something like Grace

“Many of the names on the gravestones are also the names of town roads, which reminded me of my long-ago childhood, when these roads were essentially long unpaved driveways named for the people whose farms were at the ends of them.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something like Grace

“We had lived in savannah for a million years. During that time the world got warm again and wetter, and some of the rain forest returned. But for us it was too late. By then we knew how to live only on the savannah.
We could still climb trees, but we did not go back.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Old Way: A Story of the First People

“We learned two reasons for the submissiveness of Bushmen. One reason is that it is not in their nature to fight, not in their experience to deal with people other than themselves. They would much rather run, hide, and wait until a menace has passed than defend themselves forcefully, quite unlike the Bantus, who in the past have waged great wars. But Bushmen misunderstand confrontational bravery. The heroes of their legends are little jackals who trick, lie, and narrowly escape, rather than larger, bolder animals such as lions (who in the Kalahari are something of a master race). In the Bushmen’s stories, lions are always being scalded, singed, duped, cuckolded, or killed.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People

“No cat purrs unless someone is around to listen.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

“Fall, winter, fall; for he, Prompt hand and headpiece clever, Has woven a winter robe, And made of earth and sea His overcoat forever, And wears the turning globe.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something like Grace

“colon”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something like Grace

“By and large, however, women provided the foods that sustained the people, which they did by normal gathering, and men provided the food that people liked the best and valued most highly, the meat of the important antelopes.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Old Way: A Story of the First People

“So the distinction between people was caused by the great god, and the Bushmen, who want only to be left in peace, do not compete in issues which they cannot win. They are only frightened by other peoples and hope to be spared their attention. Kung Bushmen call all strangers zhu dole, which means “stranger” but, literally, “dangerous person”; they call all non-Bushmen zo si, which means “animals without hooves,” because, they say, non-Bushmen are angry and dangerous like lions and hyenas. But Kung Bushmen call themselves zhu twa si, the harmless people. Twa means “just” or “only,” in the sense that you say: “It was just the wind” or “It is only me.”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People

“homeopathic”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something like Grace

“joined them later understood the arrangement, and fitted”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Social Lives of Dogs: The Grace of Canine Company

“The Night Is Freezing Fast,” by A. E. Housman,”
― Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something like Grace