Richard Adams > Quotes

“Well, there’s another place—another country, isn’t there? We go there when we sleep; at other times, too; and when we die.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Incrimination and heady elation, cutting capers in the misty vapours, havoc and ravage hurrah for the savage life precarious, life so various, life nefarious and temerarious, pulling faces, fierce grimaces, leaving traces in rocky places, pieces and faeces all over the fleece is that a yow's shoulder they've left there to moulder stuck up on a boulder? Much to learn, Rowf, in the fern, of great concern, for this is the point of no return. Those who kill sheep should mind where they sleep, when there's nothing to hear the shot-gun is near, the curse of the farmer is likely to harm yer, a scent in the morning is sent for a warning, at a cloud on the sun a wise dog will run, it's the sharp and alert who avoid being hurt and a dog that's gone feral is living in peril. Those with blood on their paws and wool in their jaws should heed these old saws.”
― Richard Adams, Plague (The) Dogs

“We take daylight for granted. But moonlight is another matter.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“There's terrible evil in the world. It comes from men,' said Holly. 'Men will never rest till they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, (...) 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.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“It's a bad world for animals.”
― Richard Adams

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“How comforting to be a slug, among the dandelions so snug-"
"And feel the blackbird's sudden tug.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Durante unos instantes, Pelucón no se movió. Entonces abrió los ojos y levantó la cabeza, y se puso a olisquear a los dos conejos que había junto a él. No dijo nada, y Avellano se preguntó si habría entendido lo que le había dicho. Al final murmuró: «Senior Vulneraria final, ¿sí? ».
—Yak— respondió él—. He venido a ayudarte a silflay. Te hará bien, y fuera podemos limpiarte mucho mejor. Vamos, hace una tarde preciosa, sólo hay hojas y sol.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“The fact that there was a warren two or three days' journey to the south flickered and oscillated down among them as a penny wavers down through deep water, moving one way and the other, shifting, vanishing, reappearing, but always sinking towards the firm bottom.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“The newcomers and those who were at home were accustoming themselves to each other in their own way and their own time; getting to know what the strangers smelled like, how they moved, how they breathed, how they scratched, the feel of their rhythms and pulses. These were their topics and subjects of discussion, carried on without the need of speech. To a greater extent than a human in a similar gathering, each rabbit, as he pursued his own fragment, was sensitive to the trend of the whole. After a time, all knew that the concourse was not going to turn sour or break up in a fight. Just as a battle begins in a state of equilibrium between the two sides, which gradually alters one way or the other until it is clear that the balance has tilted so far that the issue can no longer be in doubt—so this gathering of rabbits in the dark, beginning with hesitant approaches, silences, pauses, movements, crouchings side by side and all manner of tentative appraisals, slowly moved, like a hemisphere of the world into summer, to a warmer, brighter region of mutual liking and approval, until all felt sure that they had nothing to fear.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“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. 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 marvellous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“It's time people started thinking of Man as one of a number of species inhabiting the planet; and if he's the cleverest, that merely gives him more responsibility for seeing that the rest can lead proper, natural lives under minimum control.”
― Richard Adams

“Well, there’s another place, another country, isn’t there? We go there when we sleep; at other times, too; and when we die. El-ahrairah comes and goes between the two as he wants, I suppose, but I could never quite make that out, from the tales. Some rabbits will tell you it’s all easy there, compared with the waking dangers that they understand. But I think that only shows they don’t know much about it. It’s a wild place, and very unsafe. And where are we really- there or here?”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Silflay hraka, u embleer rah!”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Rabbits above ground, unless they are in proved, familiar surroundings close to their holes, live in continual fear. If it grows intense enough they can become glazed and paralysed by it - tharn, to use their own word. ― Richard Adams, Watership Down”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“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.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Dreams, then, are bubbles, insubstantial globes of waking matter, by their nature rising buoyant through the enveloping element of sleep; and for all we know, too numerous to be marked and remembered by the sleeper, who upon his awakening catches only one here or there, as a child in autumn may catch a falling leaf out of all the myriads twirling past him.”
― Richard Adams

“That warren's tharn as an owl in daylight.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Mâm Xôi, anh từng gợi ý rằng Cây Phỉ có lẽ nên kể cho bọn chúng nghe về cuộc phiêu lưu của chúng ta, nhưng không được hoan nghênh đúng không? Ai mà muốn nghe câu chuyện về những người anh hùng dũng cảm trong khi bản thân vẫn thầm xấu hổ về sự đớn hèn của mình? Ai thích nghe một câu chuyện cởi mở, có thật từ những người mà mình đang rắp tâm lừa dối?”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“There is a rabbit saying, "In the warren, more stories than passages"; and a rabbit can no more refuse to tell a story than an Irishman can refuse to fight.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Comme pour les blessures graves, il faut parfois un certain temps avant de ressentir la douleur provoquée par une grande émotion.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Only your image trembles in my heart.”
― Richard Adams

“Dogs are meant to do what men want - I can smell that, without a master. The men must have some reason, mustn't they? It must do some sort of good. They must know best.”
― Richard Adams

“My goodness, we’ve learned a few things since we left the old warren, haven’t we? More than we’ve learned in a lifetime back there. And digging! It’ll be flying next”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Dreams, then, are bubbles, insubstantial globes of waking matter, by their nature rising buoyant through the enveloping element of sleep; and for all we know, too numerous to be marked and remembered by the sleeper, who upon his awakening catches only one here or there, as a child in autumn may catch a falling leaf out of ail the myriads twirling past him. 

Be this as it may, how terrible, to some, can be the return from those dark sea-caves! Ah, God! 

We stagger up through the surf and collapse upon the sand, behind us the memory of our visions and before us the prospect of a desert shore or a land peopled by savages. Or again, we are dragged by the waves over coral, our landfall a torment from which, if only it would harbour us, we would fly back into the ocean. For indeed, when asleep we are like amphibious creatures, breathing another element, which reciprocates our own final act of waking by itself casting us out and closing the door upon all hope of immediate return. The caddis larva crawls upon the bottom of the pond, secure within its house of fragments, until in due time there comes upon it, whether it will or no, that strange and fatal hour when it must leave its frail safety and begin to crawl, helpless and exposed, towards the surface. What dangers gather about it then, in this last hour of its water-life—rending, devouring, swallowing into the belly of the great fish! And this hazard it can by no means evade, but only trust to survive. What follows? Emergence into the no-less-terrible world of air, with the prospect of the mayfly's short life, defenceless among the rising trout and pouncing sparrows. We crawl upwards towards Monday morning; to the cheque book and the boss; to the dismal recollection of guilt, of advancing illness, of imminent death in battle or the onset of disgrace or ruin. "I must be up betimes," said King Charles, awakening for the last time upon that bitter dawn in January long ago, "for I have a great work to do today." A noble gentleman, he shed no tears for himself. Yet who would not weep for him, emerging courageous, obstinate and alone upon that desolate shore whither sleep had cast him up to confront his unjust death?”
― Richard Adams, The Plague Dogs

“You want to run- I'll run with you.”
― Richard Adams

“But all this time, just as a drop of water slowly swells until it is heavy enough to fall from a twig, the idea of what they meant to do was becoming clear and unanimous.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“If we ever meet again, Hazel-rah," said Dandelion, as he took cover in the grass verge, "we ought to have the makings of the best story ever."

"And you'll be the chap to tell it," said Hazel.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down