Paul Watson
I'm thankful to have time to write.Collection: Thankful
I have been honoured to serve the whales, dolphins, seals - and all the other creatures on this Earth. Their beauty, intelligence, strength, and spirit have inspired me.Collection: Strength
Sometimes we are separated by differences, and sometimes we are united by common ideals of respect and compassion.Collection: Respect
Usually, environmental programs are not designed for a mainstream audience.Collection: Environmental
Taiwan gives a lot of foreign aid to Costa Rica, so it looks like they are basically buying the right to fish, even though it's not legal.Collection: Legal
I've won some awards. 'Time' magazine designated me as one of the environmental heroes of the 20th century. Oh, and I've got some honorary citizenships, like from the Conch Republic of the Florida Keys. But the one thing I am proud of is I didn't get the Chevron environmental award. Never did get that one.Collection: Environmental
Social change comes through people.Collection: Change
Follow your dreams and use your natural-born talents and skills to make this a better world for tomorrow.Collection: Dreams
Whales are killed today to supply the limited demand for whale meat or to be used in pet foods or as fodder for fur-bearing animals used in the fur trade.Collection: Pet
The environmental movement doesn't have many deserters and has a high level of recruitment. Eventually, there will be open war.Collection: Environmental
I experienced the California Northridge Earthquake of 1994 and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, and I have thus seen firsthand how terrible and awesomely devastating a force of nature can be.Collection: Nature
We need to stop flying, stop driving cars and jetting around on marine recreational vehicles.
Greenpeace has a fast ship that could stop the whalers cold.
The fact is, Japan's whaling is illegal, so just because there is a natural disaster in Japan is no reason for us to stop opposing their illegal activities in the Southern Ocean.
Nobody can legitimately claim to be a marine ecologist and conservationist while continuing to eat fish. It is the ultimate form of hypocrisy.
Being lampooned on 'South Park' is hardly something to complain about. They brought the issue of the dolphin and whale slaughter by the Japanese to a very large audience. I could not really care less how I was portrayed.
I used to swim with these beavers in a beaver pond when I was 10. I went back when I was 11 and found there were no more beavers. I found that trappers had taken them all, so I became quite angry, and that winter I began to walk the trap lines and free animals from the traps and destroy the traps.
I was doing a talk show in Vancouver, and somebody called in a bomb threat to protest my violence, which I thought was pretty strange. We had to evacuate.
I don't care if I put people off.
I'm never horrible to anybody. My problem, and you can ask any of my friends, is that I'm too nice to everybody.
You don't get anywhere unless you've had a little bit of a complicated life.
My grandfather carried me around on his shoulders at 85.
There are very few fishermen left today.
NATO isn't going to be concerned about fishing.
I'm not really a fugitive.
The oceans are the last free place on the planet.
Canada I don't trust. The Canadian government hates me more than the Japanese.
I want to stay in the ocean. I'm not going to be able to do that from some holding cell in Japan.
There's no rest when you're on planetary duty.
I don't eat fish because there is no such thing as sustainable fishing in the world right now.
Commercial fishermen are the greediest, stupidest people on earth.
We're close to losing our essential diversity. Look at our wheat crops - we rely on a handful of grain crops and plants that we've refined and bred over hundreds of years.
The sealing industry is dying.
I feel that we have a responsibility to try to do everything we can to protect species, and the best way to do that is to uphold international conservation law.
The only language that the Japanese whaling industry understands is economics.
I'm not interested in culture; I'm interested in the law.
The tragedy is that there is so much more incentive - money - to destroy the ecology than there is to preserve it.
Russian subs are a bargain at $60,000. Unfortunately, none of the dials or instructions are in English.
Putting Zodiacs in front of whaling vessels doesn't do it anymore. Done that, been there, seen that.
I would just say that nobody could do what I do unless you had a big ego. It's the only way you can really put it. You have to be arrogant enough to challenge the arrogance of the human race.
I wouldn't think I was successful if I didn't have just as many people hate me as support me.
No species is more important than others.
I'm not pessimistic about anything.
I have never suffered under any delusion that saving the whales in the Antarctic sanctuary would be easy, but the one thing I am certain of is that I and my passionate crew of international volunteers will never quit defending life in the seas from poachers, no matter what consequences we must endure to do so.
All revolutions are violent revolutions.
People sometimes feel frustrated about what's going on in our oceans and environment, and 'Whale Wars' shows that ordinary people can take action and make things happen.
Nobody has ever been hurt by the actions of ships I have been on.
Protesting against illegal activity is not piracy.
Most people can't see the connection between their own lives and the oceans.
I don't think you really have to retire from what you do.