The Puma Years Quotes

“I loved being inside that cage. It felt like a secret, like hiding in a cupboard when you were a child and tapping the back to see if you could reach Narnia.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“When the last tree is cut, when the last animal is hunted, when the last river is polluted, it will be then that man will realise that money cannot be eaten . . .”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“Perhaps it was the weeks in the cage alone. Perhaps it was the lack of control. Perhaps it was the heat and the fire and the fear. Her instincts would have told her to go to water perhaps. I don't know. All I know is that she's done this thing that she's been too scared to do for all the years she's been here, sitting for endless hours at her beach. I am so proud of her, it swells in my throat and I find it difficult to swallow. All I can see is the back of her head, brown in the sun, splattered with water droplets and lagoon sludge, the slick pale tips of her ears and the dark tuft of her tail swishing through the water. Everything that I feel for her swells up too, unexpected and completely flooring. I'm absolutely wrecked, my body broken and my mind shattered. Is this love? I don't know. All I know is that I've never felt anything like this before in my life.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“When the last tree is cut, when the last animal is hunted, when the last river is polluted, it will be then that man will realise that money cannot be eaten .”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“I wave my arms, whimpering, spinning on the spot. The jungle is everywhere and, as I turn and see a monkey sitting on a signpost, I leap back with a yelp. He’s the size of a small child, hunched, with thick ginger fur.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“I’ve spent my life praying to be thin and now I am, and yet I realise that wasn’t what I was praying for at all. I was just praying to feel comfortable in my own skin.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“He can walk away if he wants. He has dignity. This is all any of us can ask for.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“She tells me her theory that, for her, rescued animals are like onions. You work so hard to peel off one layer of anxiety, only to expose another, and then another that you had absolutely no idea was hiding underneath.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“Florida panther, cougar, mountain lion, catamount, painter, mountain screamer, red tiger, cuguacuarana, ghost cat . . . It is alleged that they have over eighty recorded names, more than any other animal. But for me, in Bolivia, I knew them simply as “puma” (pronounced poo”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“The jungle really seems to listen to everything. I've never felt so vulnerable. It won't stop listening, and I don't know how to tell it that I hate it.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years

“Environmental justice cannot be separated from social justice. The two are deeply intertwined.”
― Laura Coleman, The Puma Years