Great Throughts Treasury

"[Children] are fascinated with snakes. They haven?t got that steely thing that you end up either fearing or hating or despising or loathing them in some way. They are interested."

"I'd like to make it very clear that getting bitten by a venomous snake is dumb, clumsy and nothing to be proud of."

"There is a king cobra looking over our shoulders, and there is a gharial looking at us from the river. These are powerful water totems, and they are going to disturb our dreams until we do the right thing."

"Years ago, it was pretty hard to get people to empathize even a little bit with scaly, cold-blooded critters; now, thanks a lot to good PR from television, it is easier to get the message of reptile conservation and tolerance across. We have a lot to be thankful to reptiles for, not the least of which is their control of rodents."

"Luckily there were no venomous snakes around Hoosick, N.Y., so I amassed quite a collection of milk snakes, garters, ribbons and ring-necked snakes."

"I spent my childhood in northern New York State, and like many kids, bugs and other critters fascinated me."