Platypus Quotes

“Well," Peter Van Houten said, extending his hand to me. "It is at any rate a pleasure to meet such ontologically improbable creatures." I shook his swollen hand, and then he shook hands with Augustus. I was wondering what ontologically meant. Regardless, I liked it. Augustus and I were together in the Improbable Creatures Club: us and duck-billed platypuses.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“...that when the Platypus was discovered, scientists said it was a paradox. But Pirsig’s point was it was never a paradox or an oddity. It didn’t make sense only to the scientists because they viewed the nature of animals according to their own classification, when nature did not have any.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals

“If I believed a giant Platypus was coming to liberate humanity and save us all, it would still make more sense than the climate denial people do......”
― Steve Merrick

“I have spent the last week as a nearly full-time reader of platypusology.”
― Stephen Jay Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History

“I like the duck-billed platypus
Because it is anomalous.
I like the way it raises its family
Partly birdly, partly mammaly.
I like its independent attitude.
Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.”
― Ogden Nash

“Corrie's birth resonated in Britain, and Australia gained some of the liveliest publicity since the battle of El Alamein. In the thick of war, this clearly ruffled the London Daily Telegraph who published a local rhymester's verse in their columns:
Hush-a-bye Platypus,
Pride of the Zoo
Baby shall figure in Nature's Who's Who,
Mummy will fondle and Daddy will brag
While all the zoologists' tongues are a-wag.
Shush, little mammal, you're nor all that smart, This is no time to expect a star part, Sleep—and remove that smirk off your bill We are making more history than you ever will.
'Australian jungle fighters', huffed the paper 'will doubtless agree'.”
― Ann Moyal, Platypus: The Extraordinary Story of How a Curious Creature Baffled the World