"I joined the baboon troop during my twenty-first year. I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla" (Chapter 1, pg. 13.)

"So went my worst darting ever. Kind of a silly way to spend one's time. But writing nearly two decades later, darting remains in my blood" (Chapter 3, pg. 44.)

"The white people had a fight among themselves for some reason, so they started fighting here...One day, the British came and said we should go and fight also. We could not believe it—they would give us guns to shoot white people" (Chapter 7, pg. 72.)

"A just war, a nation freed, and a head jammed in the hole in the concrete. I stood watching for hours, mesmerized, as if to see how long it would take for this man to be washed away, bit...