Richard Adams Quotes

What is this stuff, do you know?" he asked. "No, I don't," said Hazel. "I've never seen it before." "There's a lot we don't know," said Blackberry. "About this place, I mean. The plants are new, the smells are new. We're going to need some new ideas ourselves." "Well, you're the fellow for ideas," said Hazel. "I never know anything until you tell me.

If you want to bless me you can bless my bottom, for it is sticking out of the hole.

For that matter, Odysseus himself might have borrowed a trick or two from the rabbit hero, for he is very old and was never at a loss for a trick to deceive his enemies.

I think we ought to do all we can to make these creatures friendly. It might turn out to be well worth the trouble.

People who record birdsong generally do it very early
before six o'clock
if they can. Soon after that, the invasion of distant noise in most woodland becomes too constant and too loud.

Like children in a dark room, like wayfarers passing a graveyard at night, the four men in the canoe filled the surrounding darkness with the fear from their own hearts.

I dare say a good many ... would have kept quiet and thought about keeping on the right side of the Chief, but I'm afraid I'm not much good at that.

Mixed with the resinous scent of the firs there came another smell, strong and fragrant, yet sharp - the perfume of flowers, but of some kind unknown to Hazel. He followed it to its source at the edge of the wood. It came from several thick patches of soapwort growing along the edge of the pasture. Some of the plants were not yet in bloom, their buds curled in pink, pointed spirals held in the pale green calices, but most were already star-flowering and giving off their strong scent. The bats were hunting among the flies and moths attracted to the soapwort.

Those are rabbits down there, trotting along like a lot of squirrels with nuts. How can that be right?

Sooner or later, everyone has to meet his match.

Stubbs may have envisaged the skeleton inside the horse, but most of us do not

You may think it's a wonderful thing to be saved by Lord Frith in his power. How many rabbits has that happened to, I wonder? But I tell you, it was far more frightening than being chased by the Efrafans.

Although leaves remained on the beeches and the sunshine was warm, there was a sense of growing emptiness over the wide space of the down. The flowers were sparser. Here and there a yellow tormentil showed in the grass, a late harebell or a few shreds of purple bloom on a brown, crisping tuft of self-heal. But most of the plants still to be seen were in seed. Along the edge of the wood a sheet of wild clematis showed like a patch of smoke, all its sweet-smelling flowers turned to old man's beard. The songs of the insects were fewer and intermittent. Great stretches of the long grass, once the teeming jungle of summer, were almost deserted, with only a hurrying beetle or a torpid spider left out of all the myriads of August. The gnats still danced in the bright air, but the swifts that had swooped for them were gone and instead of their screaming cries in the sky, the twittering of a robin sounded from the top of a spindle tree. The fields below the hill were all cleared. One had already been plowed and the polished edges of the furrows caught the light with a dull glint, conspicuous from the ridge above. The sky, too, was void, with a thin clarity like that of water. In July the still blue, thick as cream, had seemed close above the green trees, but now the blue was high and rare, the sun slipped sooner to the west and, once there, foretold a touch of frost, sinking slow and big and drowsy, crimson as the rose hips that covered the briar. As the wind freshened from the south,

One cloud feels lonely.

With a kind of wry envy, Hazel realized that Bigwig was actually looking forward to meeting the Efrafan assault. He knew he could fight and he meant to show it. He was not thinking of anything else. The hopelessness of their chances had no important place in his thoughts. Even the sound of the digging, clearer already, only set him thinking of the best way to sell his life as dearly as he could.

I certainly think that 10 to 20 years from now, clearly the majority of veterinarians will be women.

Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.

Black Rabbit: Hazel ... Hazel ... you know me, don't you?
Hazel: I don't know.
[the apparition reveals himself to be the Black Rabbit, and Hazel gasps]
Hazel: Yes, my lord. I know you.
Black Rabbit: I've come to ask if you'd like to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you, and I know you'd like it. You've been feeling tired, haven't you? If you're ready, we might go along now.
[Hazel looks at all the younger rabbits of Watership Down]
Black Rabbit: You needn't worry about them. They'll be all right, and thousands like them. If you come along now, I'll show you what I mean.

I've always said that Watership Down is not a book for children. I say: it's a book, and anyone who wants to read it can read it.

We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers.

The primroses were over.

Bluebell: Please, sir, I'm only a little [car] and I've left all my petrol on the grass. So if you don't mind eating the grass, sir, while I give this lady a ride-
Hazel: Bluebell, shut up!

Now, Rowsby Woof was the man's dog; and he was the most objectionable, malicious, disgusting brute that ever licked a man's hand. He

I distinguish two types of human beings, Love people, who love the sky and the flowers, and Power People, who are essentially sold on naked power.

When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other.

He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running.

Your storm, Thlayli-rah. Use it.

even a small warren. This one had

I'd rather succeed in doing what we can than fail to do what we can't.

The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas are immortal.

A rabbit sneeze on the morning breeze sets homesick hearts aglow sitting with his rumps in a chicory clump and longing for a nice plump doe.

A magpie, seeing some light-colored object conspicuous on the empty slope, flew closer to look. but all that lay there was a splintered peg and a twisted length of wire.

Well, there's another place - another country, isn't there? We go there when we sleep; at other times, too; and when we die.

To come to the end of a time of anxiety and fear! To feel the cloud that hung over us lift and disperse - that cloud that dulled the heart and made happiness no more than a memory! This at least is one joy that must have been known by almost every living creature.

You needn't worry about them," said his companion. "They'll be alright - and thousands like them. If you'll come along, I'll show you what I mean.

Human beings say, "It never rains but it pours." This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits' proverb is better expressed. They say, "One cloud feels lonely": and indeed it is true that the sky will soon be overcast.

Most of them had not understood Blackberry's discovery of the raft and at once forgot it.

We go by the will of the black rabbit. when he calls you, you have to go

Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.

A wild animal that feels that it no longer has any reason to live reaches in the end a point when its remaining energies may actually be directed toward dying.

beetle-spirited vaporing

Dangerous thing, a name. Someone might catch hold of you by it, mightn't they?

There's terrible evil in the world."
It comes from men," said Holly. "All other elil do what they have to do and Frith moves them as he moves us. They live on the earth and they need food. Men will never rest till they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.

Lots of little Bigwigs, Hazel! Think of that, and tremble!

You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing. But when you get there you find it's not that simple.

Rabbits need dignity and, above all, the will to accept their fate.

Oh, Frith help me!" said Fiver, trembling. "I can smell him from here. He terrifies me." "Oh, Fiver, don't be absurd! He just smells the same as the rest of them." "He smells like barley rained down and left to rot in the fields. He smells like a wounded mole that can't get underground." "He smells like a big, fat rabbit to me, with a lot of carrots inside. But I'll come with you.

The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits. They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected, they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and there, never enough at a time to drive them away.They forgot the ways of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?

But I have learned that with creatures one loves, suffering is not the only thing for which one may pity them. A rabbit who does not know when a gift has made him safe is poorer than a slug, even though he may think otherwise himself.

What is, is what must be.

Our children's children will hear a good story.

Although there was no enemy or danger to be perceived, they felt the apprehension and doubt of those who have come unaware upon some awe-inspiring place where they themselves are paltry fellows of no account.

When they got there, the first thing they saw was the man himself, with a white stick burning away in his mouth, cutting row after row of frosted cabbages. Rowsby Woof was with him, wagging his tail and jumping about in a ridiculous manner. After

Watership Down is a real place, like all the places in the book. It lies in north Hampshire, about six miles southwest of Newbury and two miles west of Kingsclere.

They're all so much afraid of the Council that they're not afraid of anything else.

I don't know where ideas come from. They come from outer space or God, if you like, or from my subconscious mind. But I never go ou self-consciously looking for a story.

Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.

Rowf's rump slid suddenly forward as smoothly as a turd from a healthy anus.

And at once he went on with his burden, as though afraid that he might already have said too much in this country where the past was sharp splinters embedded in men's minds and an ill-judged word a false step in the dark.

He looked as though he knew how to take care of himself. There was a shrewd, buoyant air about him as he sat up, looked round and rubbed both front paws over his nose.

You're trying to eat grass that isn't there. Why don't you give it a chance to grow?

Rabbit underground, rabbit safe and sound.

Racing through the ocher light, Bigwig was impelled by a frenzy of tension and energy. He did not feel the wound in his shoulder. The storm was his own. The storm would defeat Efrafa.

You can pluck up your spirits, Bluebell," he said. "I think we're close to the iron road." "I wouldn't care about my spirits," said Bluebell, "if my legs weren't so tired. Slugs are lucky not to have legs. I think I'll be a slug." "Well, I'm a hedgehog," said Hazel, "so you'd better get on!" "You're not," replied Bluebell. "You haven't enough fleas. Now, slugs don't have fleas, either. How comforting to be a slug, among the dandelions so snug - " "And feel the blackbird's sudden tug," said Hazel.

To be dead may be nothing, yet who relishes the business of dying?

At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be, or whether he was no more than a tyrant with the courage and cunning of a pirate. For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit's idea shone clearly before him. He grasped it and realized what it meant. The next, he had pushed it away from him.

That wasn't why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves.

If a rabbit gave advice and the advice wasn't accepted, he immediately forgot it, and so did everyone else.

Silflay hraka, u embleer rah," replied Bigwig.

Who wants to hear about brave deeds when he's ashamed of his own, and who likes an open, honest tale from someone he's deceiving?

The world, he now perceived, was in fact a great, flat wheel with a myriad spokes of water, trees and grass, for ever turning and turning beneath the sun and moon. At each spoke was an animal-all the animals and birds he had ever known-horses, dogs, chaffinches, mice, hedgehogs,rabbits, cows, sheep, rooks and many more which he did not recognize-a huge, striped cat, and a monstrous fish spurting water in a fountain to the sky. At the centre, on the axle itself, stood a man, who ceaselessly lashed and lashed the creatures with a whip to make them drive the wheel round. Some shrieked aloud as they bled and struggled, others silently toppled and were trodden down beneath their comrades' stumbling feet. And yet, as he himself could see, the man had misconceived his task, for in fact the wheel turned of itself and all he needed to do was to keep it balanced upon its delicate axle by adjusting, as might be necessary, the numbers of animals upon this side and that. The great fish poured blood as the man pierced it with a flying spear which exploded within its body. The striped cat melted, diminishing slowly to the size of a mouse; and a great, grey beast with a long trunk cried piteously as the man tore its white tusks out of its face. Still on towards the wheel he circled, and between him and the wheel Mr. Ephraim called him silently to fellowship with the dead.

Plot as such is not a major ingredient in my novels ... it's often better to sail on the unconscious sea.

When several creatures, men or animals, have worked together to overcome something offering resistance and have at last succeeded, there follows often a pause, as though they felt the propriety of paying respect to the adversary who has put up so good a fight. The great tree falls, splitting, cracking, rushing down in leaves to the final, shuddering blow along the ground. Then the foresters are silent, and do not at once sit down. After hours, the deep snowdrift has been cleared and the lorry is ready to take the men home out of the cold. But they stand a while, leaning on their spades and only nodding unsmilingly as the car-drivers go through, waving their thanks.

Rain before sunset and we'll be in shelter.

Frith meant us to get back," replied Holly. "That's the real reason why we're here.

I should hurry, then, if I were you," said Blackberry. "The sun will be down soon." "Hah!" said Bigwig. "If I meet a stoat, it'd better look out, that's all. I'll bring you one back tomorrow, shall I?

Hazel's feelings were like those which might pass through the mind of a defeated general. Where were his followers exactly? He hoped, not far away. But were they? All of them? Where had he led them? What was he going to do now? What if an enemy appeared at this moment? He had answers to none of these questions and no spirit left to force himself to think about them. Behind him, Pipkin shivered in the damp, and he turned and nuzzled him - much as the general, with nothing left to do, might fall to considering the welfare of his servant, simply because the servant happened to be there.

How do they find out with the experiments?'
' ... one way they can find out a whole lot is to make an animal ill and then try different ways to make it better until they find one that works.'
'But isn't that unkind to the animal?'
'Well, I suppose it is ... but I mean, there isn't a dad anywhere who would hesitate, is there, if he knew it was going to make [his child] better? It's changed the whole world during the last hundred years, and that's no exaggeration.

The rabbits mingled naturally. They did not talk for talking's sake, in the artificial manner that human beings - and sometimes even their dogs and cats - do. But this did not mean that they were not communicating; merely that they were not communicating by talking.

Bigwig: "I can't think why he didn't convince Threarah."
Hazel: "Because Threarah doesn't like anything he hasn't thought of for himself.

He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.

Thayli, you are very brave. Are you cunning, too?

Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.

A land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon,

This was their way of honoring the dead. The story over, the demands of their own hard, rough lives began to re-assert themselves in their hearts, in their nerves, their blood and appetites. Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept. Odysseus brings not one man to shore with him. Yet he sleeps sound beside Calypso and when he wakes thinks only of Penelope.

But he - he hated pity as a cat hates water.

Hazel, watching, lent help here and there and encouraged the others.

And, Freedom, was I free?

Hazel, like nearly all wild animals, was unaccustomed to look up at the sky. What he thought of as the sky was the horizon, usually broken by trees and hedges.

Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss. They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference. It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now. A foraging wild creature, intent above all upon survival, is as strong as the grass.

Once the moon gets to be full somebody - some man or other - goes up every day and slices bits of one side until there isn't any more,and then after a bit a new one grows. Men do that with all sorts of things, actually - rose bushes for instance.... The man who slices the bits off brings them down here and then they're used for making those lights on the cars. Clever isn't it... They only last about one night, I should think, because you hardly ever see them shining by day.

There is not a day or night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit's. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here, what is, is what must be.

There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to some strange and marvelous place where no one even stops to notice that you stare about you.

My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.