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.'
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
Nature has lent us life at interest, like money, and has fixed no day for its payment.
I think of rivers, of tides. Forests and water gushing out. Rain and lightning. Rocks and shadows. All of these are in me.
One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun.
When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. That's my middle-west - not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.
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