Quotes from Richard Adams

It's the place that worries you, said Hazel. I don't like it myself, but it won't go on forever.

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.

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.

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.

Here is a boy who was waiting to be punished. But then, unexpectedly, he finds that his fault has been overlooked or forgiven and at once the world reappears in brilliant colors, full of delightful prospects. Here is a soldier who was waiting, with a heavy heart, to suffer and die in battle. But suddenly the luck has changed. There is news! The war is over and everyone bursts out singing! He will go home after all!

All was confusion, ignorance, clambering and exhaustion.

derived from Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess who was cursed by the god Apollo always to tell the truth and never to be believed.

Every length smells of rabbit—of that great, indestructible flood of Rabbitry in which each one is carried along, sure-footed and safe.

I'm the one who ought to get angry," said Fiver. "But I'm no good at it, that's the trouble.

Oh, Frith in a barn! What a business!

Gli animali non si comportano come gli uomini. Se devono battersi, si battono. Se devono uccidere, uccidono. Ma non usano la loro intelligenza per trovar la maniera di arrecar danni alle altre creature, di avvelenar loro la vita. Essi hanno dignità, hanno animalità.

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

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought. J. K. GALBRAITH, The Affluent Society

Think yourself lucky," said Bigwig, bleeding and cursing, "that I don't kill you.

Silflay hraka, u embleer rah," replied Bigwig.

Rain before sunset and we'll be in shelter.

confer stillness upon it. We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers. And its low intensity—so much lower than that of daylight—makes us conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and marvelous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again.

back to the hollow in the middle of the field. As he waited, Hazel realized more fully than ever how dangerous was their position, without holes, wandering in country they did not know.

I don't like straight lines: men make them.

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

Warren life doesn't make for secrecy.

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!

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.

In the great burrow, however, things happened differently. 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.