Farley Mowat > Quotes

“We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

“And this is what happened, ands this is why the caribou and the wolf are one; for the caribou feeds the wolf, but it is the wolf that keeps the caribou strong.”
― Farley Mowat

“Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

“Inaction will cause a man to sink into the slough of despond and vanish without a trace.”
― Farley Mowat

“It is to this new-found resolution to reassert our indivisibility with life, to recognize the obligations incumbent upon us as the most powerful and deadly species ever to exist, and to begin making amends for the havoc we have wrought, that my own hopes for a revival and continuance of life on earth now turn. If we persevere in this new way we may succeed in making man humane ... at last.”
― Farley Mowat

“Somewhere to the eastward a wolf howled; lightly, questioningly. I knew the voice, for I had heard it many times before. It was George, sounding the wasteland for an echo from the missing members of his family. But for me it was a voice which spoke of the lost world which once was ours before we chose the alien role; a world which I had glimpsed and almost entered...only to be excluded, at the end, by my own self.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

“...the three cardinal tenets of rum drinking in Newfoundland. The first of these is that as soon as a bottle is placed on a table it must be opened. This is done to "let the air get at it and carry off the black vapors." The second tenet is that a bottle, once opened, must never be restoppered, because of the belief that it will then go bad. No bottle of rum has ever gone bad in Newfoundland, but none has ever been restoppered, so there is no way of knowing whether this belief is reasonable. The final tenet is that an open bottle must be drunk as rapidly as possible "before all to-good goes out of it.”
― Farley Mowat, The Boat Who Wouldn't Float

“You never know when the devil might come calling.”
― Farley Mowat

“I wonder now… were my tears for Alex and Al and all the others who had gone and who were yet to go? Or was I weeping for myself…and those who would remain?”
― Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang

“And so the pact of timelessness between us was broken and I went from him into the darkening tunnel of the years.”
― Farley Mowat

“I will take any liberty I want with facts as long as I don't trespass on the truth...We confuse facts with truth.”
― Farley Mowatt

“The Ilhalmiut do not fill canvases with their paintings, or inscribe figures on rocks, or carve figurines in clay or in stone, because in the lives of the People there is no room for the creation of objects of no practical value. What purpose is there in creating beautiful things if these must be abandoned when the family treks out over the Barrens? But the artistic sense is present and strongly developed. It is strongly alive in their stories and songs, and in the string-figures, but they also use it on the construction of things which assist in their living and in these cases it is no less an art. The pleasure of abstract creation is largely denied to them by the nature of the land, but still they know how to make beauty.
They know how to make beauty, and they also know how to enjoy it-- for it is no uncommon thing to see an Ilhalmio man squatting silently on a hill crest and watching, for hours at a time, the swift interplay of colors that sweep the sky at sunset and dawn. It is not unusual to see an Ilhalmio pause for long minutes to watch the sleek beauty of a weasel or to stare into the brilliant heart of some minuscule flower. And these things are done quite unconsciously, too. There is no word for 'beauty'--as such--in their language; it needs no words in their hearts.”
― Farley Mowat, People of the Deer

“There was no other wanderer on that road, yet I was not alone, for his tracks went with me, each pawprint as familiar as the print of my own hand. I followed them, and I knew each thing that he had done, each move that he had made, each thought that had been his; for so it is with two who live one life together.”
― Farley Mowat, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be

“The third time out he concluded that we were hunting cows.
That was a day that will live long in memory. Mutt threw himself into cow chasing with a frenzy that was almost fanatical. He became, in a matter of hours, a dedicated dog. It was a ghastly day, yet it had its compensations for Father. When we returned home that night, very tired, very dusty–and sans birds—he was able to report to Mother that her "hunting dog" had attempted to retrieve forty-three heifers, two bulls, seventy-two steers, and an aged ox belonging to a Dukhobor family.”
― Farley Mowat, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be

“the free rights of men to destroy themselves through ignorance.”
― Farley Mowat, People of the Deer

“the most blood thirsty animals in the Artic are not wolves, but the insatiable mosquitoes.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

“As the Siberian saying goes: One hundred versts (roughly a hundred miles) is no distance. A hundred rubles isn't worthwhile money. And a hundred grams of vodka just makes you thirsty.”
― Farley Mowat, The Siberians

“Death will find me long before I tire of contemplating an evening spent in his company during which he enthralled a mixed audience consisting of a fur trader, a Cree Indian matron, and an Anglican missionary, with an hour-long monologue on sexual aberrations in female pygmy shrews. (The trader misconstrued the tenor of the discourse; but the missionary, inured by years of humorless dissertations, soon put him right.)”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

“The new plan looked like the answer.”
― Farley Mowat

“The frozen fish were later put in deep holes in the moss and covered over to keep until they were needed.”
― Farley Mowat

“I'll braid you one.”
― Farley Mowat

“Then he jumped up and shouted.”
― Farley Mowat

“The Hunters, armed with heavy clubs, Advance upon the Isle, and by the noise They make, affright the Creatures, which By flight into the Sea, seek an escape From those upon their slaughter bent... It matters not which course they take, All are struck down upon the way; Fathers and Mothers, little Ones... Upon them all, blows fall like hail; If well directed, one upon the nose Suffices and the deed is done. But The beast still lives, for by the blow It is but shorn of consciousness; And sometimes so, within an hour’s space, Five or six hundred are laid low.”
― Farley Mowat, Sea of Slaughter

“Jamie was quick to see a use for the ice sheet.”
― Farley Mowat

“Нека да кажа тогава, че написах тази книга с твърдото убеждение, че никога не е имало и не може да има "добра" война. Моята беше от сравнително добрите (стига, разбира се, подобни бедствия да могат да са добри) и въпреки това бе ужасна, кошмарна. Толкова ужасна, че през тези три десетилетия пазех ужасния спомен за нея, грижливо обвит в защитената пелена на забравата, и щях да съм много доволен, да го бях оставил заровен там... но не издържах, защото Прастарата лъжа - временно поставена под съмнение от разгрома във Виетнам, пак печели поддръжници; шепот, който скоро току-виж се превърнал в пронизителен вик, тласкащ ни отново към кървава касапница.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Пръкнала се в Ада, много преди Омир да я освети, и оттогава отпратила толкова хора към лудост и разруха, тази Прастара лъжа трябва да бъде низвергната.
И ако книги като моята трябва да имат специална цел... то нека тази цел бъде такава.”
― Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang

“We have doomed the wolf not for what it is but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be: the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer—which is, in reality, no more than the reflected image of ourself. We have made it the scapewolf for our own sins.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

“Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign of vilification. Antiwolf feelings at Brochet (the northern Manitoba base for my winter studies) when I arrived there from Wolf House Bay were strong and bitter.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

“Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destroy; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign of vilification.”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

“Originally tasked with finding out why wolves were slaughtering caribou, Mowat instead discovered that wolves are family-oriented creatures with complex behaviors, not the bloodthirsty beasts they were thought to be. Never Cry Wolf is credited with changing the public perception of wolves and challenging the hunter and government”
― Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

“her”
― Farley Mowat, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be