Scientific innovations continually provide us with new means of analyzing the finds.

Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place.

The land is not in the least bit fertile and yet the cattle herds grow larger and larger. A cow represents capital investment here.

We are concerned that, in a few years time, this place of discovery, with its wealth of human fossils, the like of which can be found nowhere else in the world, could be completely destroyed.

To investigate the history of man's development, the most important finds are, of course, hominid fossils.

We think that groups of between 30 and 40 early men would have settled in an area measuring a hundred square kilometers.

The problem is that during the 1980s, a decade of heavy poaching, the elephants retreated to safer areas. And now people have moved into the corridors once used by the elephants.

A number of scientists with greatly different backgrounds can come up with completely different assessments. The discussions or controversies are endless. Once a year, we try to bring the most important discoverers together to exchange their experiences and knowledge.

I, too, am convinced that our ancestors came from Africa.

The elephants were being slaughtered in masses. Some were even killed in the vicinity of big tourist hotels.

It is virtually impossible to control Northern Kenya, which is populated chiefly by migrant nomads.

We hope to find more pieces of the puzzle which will shed light on the connection between this upright, walking ape, our early ancestor, and modern man.

Paleoanthropology is not a science that ends with the discovery of a bone. One has to have the original to work with. It is a life-long task.

Primates need good nutrition, to begin with. Not only fruits and plants, but insects as well.

Sadly, I am not able to take part in the fieldwork myself so much anymore, as both of my legs were amputated following an airplane crash twelve years ago.

Earlier, 100,000 elephants lived in Kenya and we didn't have any noteworthy problem with it. The problem that we have is not that there are now more elephants.

For fossils to thrive, certain favorable circumstances are required. First of all, of course, remnants of life have to be there. These then need to be washed over with water as soon as possible, so that the bones are covered with a layer of sediment.

One should not forget that there are very few surviving items from this period, often just single, small bones, a tooth, a sliver of the skull. Categorizing these pieces can be very difficult.

I would hazard a guess that we have found fossilized human remains of at least a thousand different specimens in South and East Africa, more or less complete at that. I think this is where the prelude to human history was primarily played out.

Elephants can live to an age of up to 70 or 80 years and they have a good memory. It could be they come across an area that is experiencing a drought. Then they continue on their path and run into people.

Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance.

Scientific innovations continually provide us with new means of analyzing the finds.

I can't think of any other region in the world which is such a vast source of fossils.

If your neighbor has a completely different view on abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, all of those things, you still are both Americans. Neither one of you is necessarily more patriotic than the other. Neither loves their country any more than the other one does.

I couldn't do any of my other characters, you know? But I could have done the lady. Church Lady's Malibu Beach party is an idea I have for a movie, too. Yes.

It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing.

Marriage, ultimately, is the practice of becoming passionate friends.

I remember a couple of instrumental albums, just don't ask the names.

Being a woman is hard work.

There's only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, but there's no road leading from the ridiculous to the sublime.

A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose.

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

One of my favorite graphic novels of all time is Grant Morrison's 'Earth-2.'

IndieBio's capital, facilities and deep mentoring by a network of biotech specific experts have the potential to spawn the Google's, Facebook's and Instagram's of biology.

Social Security's future has gotten worse, and each year we delay reform adds to the cost we are pushing off onto our children.

Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.

I know that some of the characters I played were trash. But then, I chose to take up those roles, as I enjoyed doing them.

Violence is the repartee of the illiterate.

My mood depends heavily on what happens to me right after I get up.

Obviously, there is much similarity among the challenges of transgender people and all women - from health care to harassment to discrimination in the workplace.

Why not provoke some thought and get people talking about things? I like characters that are flawed because we all are. When people break up in a script, you think, Oh, right, there must be tears shed here. But maybe the fact of the matter is that they're both laughing.

I feel an army in my fist.

A grown man, weeping, is a tough thing to see.

I don't buy this premise that the number of minifigures needs to be an equal amount to be gender neutral. Nobody makes artistic products like that; nobody makes a movie and says there has to be equal numbers of men and women.

My motto is more, 'If you want to find something new, look for something new!' There is a certain amount of risk in this attitude, as even the slightest failure tends to be resounding, but you are so happy when you succeed that it is worth taking the risk.

Consider the possibility that many of the things you hear and say are utter nonsense and meaningless repetitions of noise.

I grew up partially around Stone Mountain, Georgia, and in that part of the country, there was always this aura of mythology and palpable sense of otherness about being a Southerner.