"It is no longer a question of whether or not we should set aside some more of the yet remaining native California landscape as 'breathing space'. ... If we do not, we will leave our children a legacy of concrete treadmills leading nowhere except to other congested places like those they will be trying to get away from."
--Former Congressman Clem Miller, author of legislation to create Point Reyes National Seashore

"We need to keep some of our vanishing shoreline an unspoiled place, where all men, a few at a time, can discover what really belongs there -- can find their own Island in Time."
--Harold Gilliam. Island in Time. 1962.

"The Peninsula is what we have and there is no more where it came from."
--David Brower

"To cross this valley to the peninsula (Point Reyes) is to leave modern California and enter an island of wilderness, forgotten by progress, a quiet land misplaced in a noisy world."
--Stephen Trimble

"We strongly believe it is in the national interest to capitalize on the few remaining clear opportunities to save our vanishing shoreline for public recreational use, particularly the very few still unspoiled and outstanding shoreline areas near large concentrations of population.... It seems to us...that Point Reyes peninsula presents such a clear opportunity...."
--Congressman Clem Miller and Senator Clair Engle, joint statement upon introducing the Point Reyes National Seashore bills to the 87th Congress, January, 1961