Mary Leakey

I got too old to live in the bush. You really need to be youngish and healthy, so it seemed stupid to keep going.

I quite liked having a baby - I think I won't put it more strongly than that. But I had no intention of allowing motherhood to disrupt my work as an archeologist.

I had never passed a single school exam, and clearly never would.

I never felt interpretation was my job.

Now this really is something to put on the mantelpiece.

She stops, pauses, turns to the left to glance at some possible threat or irregularity, and then continues to the north. This motion, so intensely human, transcends time.

I go once a year to the Serengeti to see the wildebeest migrations because that means a lot to me, but I avoid Olduvai if I can because it is a ruin. It is most depressing.

I'd rather be in a tent than in a house.

Theories come and go, but fundamental data always remain the same.

Basically, I have been compelled by curiosity.

No amounts of stone and bone could yield the kinds of information that the paintings gave so freely.

You only find what you are looking for, really, if the truth be known.

I dug things up. I was curious. I liked to draw what I found.

The first money I ever earned was for drawing stone tools.