Quotes from James Herriot

The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.

All young animals are appealing but the lamb has been given an unfair share of charm.

he devoted a considerable amount of his acute intelligence to the cause of doing as little as possible. Tristan did, in fact, spend much of his time sleeping in a chair.

a bullock, backing in alarm from the halter, crashed its craggy behind into my midriff. The wind shot out of me in a sharp hiccup, then the animal decided to turn round in the narrow passage, squashing me like a fly against the railings. I was pop-eyed as it scrambled round; I wondered whether the creaking was coming from my ribs or the wood behind me.

And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly

There was no last animal I treated. When young farm lads started to help me over the gate into a field or a pigpen, to make sure the old fellow wouldn't fall, I started to consider retiring.

A farmer once told me one of the greatest luxuries of his life was to wake up early only to go back to sleep again.

I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much – in just standing and staring.

They can't find my house now because I keep it very quiet where I live.

It was Sunday morning (one a.m.), a not unusual time for some farmers, after a late Saturday night, to have a look round their stock and decide to send for the vet.

I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.

I love writing about my job because I loved it, and it was a particularly interesting one when I was a young man. It was like holidays with pay to me.

For years I used to bore my wife over lunch with stories about funny incidents.

I wish people would realize that animals are totally dependent on us, helpless, like children, a trust that is put upon us.

If a farmer calls me to a sick animal, he couldn't care less if I were George Bernard Shaw.

I was helped by having a verbatim memory of what happened years ago, even if I can't remember what happened a couple of days ago.

I am never at my best in the early morning, especially a cold morning in the Yorkshire spring with a piercing March wind sweeping down from the fells, finding its way inside my clothing, nipping at my nose and ears.

I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.

I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box.

He was polishing the glass with a dead hen.

Fred had trocharised a bloated cow and the farmer had been so impressed by the pent up gas hissing from the abdomen that Fred had got carried away and applied his cigarette lighter to the canula. A roaring sheet of flame had swept on to some straw bales and burned the byre to the ground.

AS I CRAWLED INTO bed and put my arm around Helen it occurred to me, not for the first time, that there are few pleasures in this world to compare with snuggling up to a nice woman when you are half frozen.

His name is Tristan, by the way. Tristan? Yes. Oh, I should have told you. You must have wondered about my own name. It was my father. Great Wagnerian. It nearly ruled his life. It was music all the time -- mainly Wagner. I'm a bit partial myself. Ah well, yes, but you didn't get it morning, noon and night like we did. And then to be stuck with a name like Siegfried. Anyway, it could have been worse-- Wotan, for instance.

Every day lasts a year. I never enjoy anything. And every morning when I wake up I dread having to face the world again.