My mother early on taught us to respect all animals, and I mean all animals - not just cats and dogs but rats and snakes and spiders and fish and wildlife, so I really grew up believing they are just like us and just as deserving of consideration.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of respecting all forms of life, not just pets, suggesting that every animal deserves consideration.
Joanna Lumley highlights the lessons she learned from her mother about respecting all animals, regardless of their species. This perspective fosters empathy towards all living beings, suggesting that animals, whether traditionally loved or feared, should be treated with kindness and consideration as they share our world.
In practice
During a school presentation on animal rights, one might quote this to emphasize respect for all living beings.
Way back in the 1970s, I was eating a steak, and I looked down, and for the first time it suddenly looked like flesh to me - like a dead creature. In a flash, I realized that every time I ate any kind of meat, something had been killed for me, and I stopped eating all animals, not just cows and pigs but chickens and fish.
I've never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I've never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I'd like to do. Never. And still don't. And if something comes along, I say 'Fine.'
[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.
In Isleta the rainbow was a crack in the universe. We saw the barest of all life that is possible. Bright horses rolled over and over the dusking sky.
Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild.
The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters... and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult.
Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite_x000D_ _x000D_ Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love._x000D_ _x000D_ News from the humming city comes to it_x000D_ _x000D_ It sound of funeral or of marriage bells.
Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality.
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