Animals are complicated and so is the animal-rights opposition. It's hard to read motives in animals, and hard to read motives in politics.

If you fear something, walk into it.

Madrid reacting with the forceful protection of bullfighting as an art form is an example of the survival of the old values.

Cooking certainly has some of the elements of an art form.

I'm good at killing, I'm known as a bullfighter who kills well, and that I can kill well, that I can compete technically with my male peers in my technique in killing, gives me satisfaction.

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how the change in values makes the survival of the old values, where they do survive, all the more striking. There are pockets of the old bullfighting world that exist more or less intact, both in Spain and elsewhere.

A bull will try to outwit you. It will stop and hook when the last thing you expect from it is that it will stop and hook.

My own experience has taught me not to underestimate the power of those who protest against cruelty. I'd also say that there may be a tendency to view the animal-rights opposition in somewhat distorted fashion as a new development, as the product of a very recent enlightenment about the rights due to animals.

In one era the majority puts its faith and sympathy with the bullfighter, in another with the bull.

I never took pleasure in seeing a bull die. Relief, but certainly not pleasure.

It's almost impossible to imagine bullfighting abolished from Spain entirely. Values do change, though.