[N]ow we have a clearer idea what this story is all about: T... - Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

"If you alone found out what the lie was, then you're probably right—it would make no great difference. But if you ALL found out what the lie was, it might conceivably make a very great difference indeed."

"No one species shall make the life of the world its own.' … That's one expression of the law. Here's another: 'The world was not made for any one species."

"If the world was made for us, then it BELONGS to us and we can do what we damn well please with it."

"You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live. … You are captives—and you have made a captive of the world itself. That's what's at stake, isn't it?—your captivity and the captivity of the world."

"[T]he price you've paid is not the price of becoming human. It's not even the price of having the things you just mentioned. It's the price of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world."