I've had a lot of disappointments. I think my biggest disappointment is the failure of elected officials to make good on their promises in regards to the environment or anything else, really. I have very little faith in politicians.

The only thing scarier than Godzilla is Godzilla's lawyers.

The United Nations World Charter for Nature, section 21, empowers any nongovernmental organisation or individual to uphold international conservation law in areas beyond national jurisdiction and specifically on the high seas.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society recognizes that the deaths of four sealers is a tragedy, but Sea Shepherd also recognizes that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups is an even greater tragedy.

Protesting against illegal activity is not piracy.

Japan is a bully nation that takes what it wants and threatens any who oppose it.

Way back in October 2007, I had urged thousands of Australians to vote for Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett's Labor Party. Why? Because they promised to get tough on illegal Japanese whaling.

As long as there is a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, Sea Shepherd crew will continue to patrol and defend it.

I take a biocentric point of view. I look at things from the point of view of the Earth and the laws of ecology. As opposed to the anthropocentric point of view, where everything revolves around humanity.

There are very few fishermen left today.

NATO isn't going to be concerned about fishing.

In 1993, I chased Cuban and Spanish drag trawlers off the Grand Banks off of Newfoundland. And it cost them $35 million in losses.

My concern is not for the judicial system, but for the reality that the shark fin mafia of Costa Rica has a price on my head, and a Costa Rican prison would provide an excellent opportunity for someone to exercise this lethal contract against me.

I have actually led more expeditions to Antarctica than Scott, Amundsen, and Shackleton put together.

Ecoterrorism is terrorism against the environment.

Costa Rica and Germany have simply been pawns in the Japanese quest to silence Sea Shepherd in an attempt to stop our annual opposition of their illegal whaling activities.

That's the thing with celebrities: the media can't ignore them.

I find it abhorrent to see a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but bear witness.

Domestic house cats kill more fish than all the world's seals put together.

I want to stay in the ocean. I'm not going to be able to do that from some holding cell in Japan.

It is true that many of the Sea Shepherd crewmembers are inexperienced, but the fact is that these volunteers bring a passion to the project that cannot be found in a hired crew.

Putting Zodiacs in front of whaling vessels doesn't do it anymore. Done that, been there, seen that.

I've won some awards. 'Time' magazine designated me as one of the environmental heroes of the 20th century. Oh, and I've got some honorary citizenships, like from the Conch Republic of the Florida Keys. But the one thing I am proud of is I didn't get the Chevron environmental award. Never did get that one.

In December 2012, the U.S. 9th district court granted a temporary injunction to the Japanese whalers that ordered the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society U.S.A. to not approach within 500 yards of the whaling vessels.

Immigration is one of the leading contributors to population growth.

Taiwan gives a lot of foreign aid to Costa Rica, so it looks like they are basically buying the right to fish, even though it's not legal.

I experienced the California Northridge Earthquake of 1994 and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, and I have thus seen firsthand how terrible and awesomely devastating a force of nature can be.

We live on the most incredible planet, and yet we abuse it, and we abuse it mercilessly.

People say I manipulate the media. Well, duh. We live in a media culture, so why on earth wouldn't I?

The Brer Rabbit ploy has been quite effective for me. When a country is talking about prosecuting me, I demand to be charged and put on trial and offer to pay my own airfare. They know that I'm going to bring a lot of international media with me and put their whaling programme on trial, and they decide it's better to keep quiet and do nothing.

I don't think that any government has a right to subvert the truth or to cover up the truth, and all I see WikiLeaks doing is exposing the truth.

My grandfather carried me around on his shoulders at 85.

All confrontation is based on deception.

Pete Bethune is a hero in New Zealand. He's a hero worldwide to people who want to see the end of whaling.

I was doing a talk show in Vancouver, and somebody called in a bomb threat to protest my violence, which I thought was pretty strange. We had to evacuate.

The Polynesians used to have a system where they proclaimed a fishing area as 'taboo.' If any fisherman was caught fishing in a taboo area, they would be killed. The Polynesians understand that the fish had to be given a chance to recover.

I'm not really a fugitive.

People are beginning to realize that we need to live in accordance with the law of ecology, the law of finite resources, and if we don't, we're going to go extinct.

The biggest predator of fish like cod is other fish - and seals keep fish like that in check.

Does Greenpeace think it can stop whaling in Antarctica by publicly eating whale meat and declaring it delicious? What are these people thinking?

Killing a baby seal is about the easiest thing you can do if you're inclined to be sadistic; you certainly can't say there's any sport in it - the animal is totally defenceless.

Social change comes through people.

I have been honoured to serve the whales, dolphins, seals - and all the other creatures on this Earth. Their beauty, intelligence, strength, and spirit have inspired me.

I will not watch a whale die. I've not seen a whale die since I left Greenpeace in 1977.

I don't eat fish because there is no such thing as sustainable fishing in the world right now.

The tragedy is that there is so much more incentive - money - to destroy the ecology than there is to preserve it.

I have never suffered under any delusion that saving the whales in the Antarctic sanctuary would be easy, but the one thing I am certain of is that I and my passionate crew of international volunteers will never quit defending life in the seas from poachers, no matter what consequences we must endure to do so.

I did not establish the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as a protest organisation.

Documentaries make a difference.

Greenpeace is the world's largest feel-good organisation now, and I can say that 'cause I am one of their co-founders.