Quotes from Richard Adams

I am sorry for you with all my heart. But you cannot blame us, for you came to kill us if you could.

Rabbits live close to death and when death comes closer than usual, thinking about survival leaves little room for anything else.

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.

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.

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

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.

Men will never rest till they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.

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

We are all human and fall short of where we need to be. We must never stop trying to be the best we can be.

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.

Rabbits live close to death and when death comes closer than usual, thinking about survival leaves little room for anything else.

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