Ingrid Newkirk
Ingrid Newkirk
President, People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA)
(1949 - )
"Recognize meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal."
"I'd eat burgers, steak, anything. I love car racing and meat. I am a boy at heart, I am my father's son ... On my way down into the District, I would stop in Potomac and pick up triple-ground prime meat ... I would break a raw egg and take onions and capers and I would mix it all, and I would go about checking on the animals while eating this raw food right out of my hand. I am just a raw-oyster, raw-meat-eating person who happened to find out what happened in the meat industry, and I just can't support it."
"I do support getting animals out in the same way I would have supported getting human slaves out, child labor, sex slaves, the whole lot. But I don't support burning. I don't support arson. I would rather that these buildings weren't standing, so on some level I understand. I just don't like the idea of that. Maybe that is wishy-washy of me, because I don't want those buildings standing if they are going to hurt anyone. And the ALF has never hurt mice nor mare."
"In this business I am very easy to cubby hole. As someone said to me the other day—they had seen the HBO special—and they said, "Are you really a sad obsessed person?" And I thought, No, I'm not really a sad person, except when I lie awake at night in winter thinking about all the animals out without shelter, and then I'm sad! Who wouldn't be? Wouldn't anybody be sad if they have a heart? It's just that I've seen so much."
