Gordon Grice > Quotes

“The tree was bare, and the crows adorned it like notes on a treble clef.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“On an Antarctic expedition in 1985 and ‘86, a man named Gareth Wood was walking on ice when a leopard seal emerged from a fissure and bit him on the leg. One of Wood’s companions kicked the seal repeatedly with his cramponed boot, drawing blood from its head, until it let go. It came back for a second bite. This time two companions kicked the seal; it let go for good. In 2003, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey was snorkeling when a leopard seal seized and drowned her.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“As any parrot owner will tell you, pet birds can give serious bites. The nut-cracking beak of the African gray parrot, for example, can sever fingers. In 1998, the Labour Party’s John Prescott, deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom, was engaged in a publicity event for environmental issues when a captive macaw, clearly a Tory, fetched him a bruising bite on the finger.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“As a child I handled many without being harmed, reciting the misogynist injunction that the ladybug must hurry home to save her children from a fire.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“It has been speculated that the hammering noise made by the first mate as he attempted to repair one of the whale boats communicated some inadvertent challenge to the big bull, but I find defense of his fellows a more plausible explanation. We now know that sperm whales are intelligent animals. The big bull probably understood what was happening and tried to stop it.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“The custom among many human cultures of defending corpses against scavengers — by burying them, for example — probably has its roots in the need to keep predators from learning to take us as food.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“I particularly like the lice — this story, too, is false. In fact, though biting is a plausible means for a sperm whale to dispatch a man, the narrow gauge of its throat makes actually swallowing humans improbable.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“It’s difficult to nail down the dangers of specific breeds. News reports often, and without sufficient evidence, blame the breeds considered dangerous at the time. Today, for example, pit bull terriers and rottweilers take the blame for attacks from all sorts of dogs. In the past, Doberman pinschers and German shepherds were similarly blamed.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals

“In the summer of 1975, the water changed. Not the actual water: the water of the mind.”
― Gordon Grice, The Book of Deadly Animals