Favorite quote at the moment

A Primate's Memoir

I just read A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons by Robert Sapolsky; a brilliant, hilarious, insightful, and deeply-moving memoir that makes you simultaneously fall in love with both Sapolsky and baboons. I have very many favorite quotes and moments and characterizations from the book that I will re-read for years to come and just reflect on for hours, but here is a favorite I have been mulling over a bit about basically wanting to protect the species one studies:

“Every primatologist I know is losing that battle. They make me think of someone whose unlikely job would be to collect snowflakes, to rush into a warm room and observe the unique pattern under a microscope before it melts and is never seen again.”

And here is a simple quote from this New York Time’s review of the book that should dispel any concerns it could be boring and further inspire you to read it:

“The book’s life flows largely from the youthful Sapolsky’s penchant for throwing himself at the world and weighing the consequences later. Case in point: what specific aspect of his fancy education can help him escape a cave that he finds himself sharing with a large, drugged baboon and an impala (half-eaten, but alive enough to keep kicking him in the head)? His strategy also has to accommodate the baboon troop that’s massing at the cave’s entrance and hollering for impala blood.”