Derek > Derek's Quotes

“Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

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

“Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to some strange and marvelous place where no one even stops to notice that you stare about you.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“A thing can be true and still be desperate folly, Hazel.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“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.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“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.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Human beings say, "It never rains but it pours." This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits' proverb is better expressed. They say, "One cloud feels lonely": and indeed it is true that the sky will soon be overcast.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“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. 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

“A wild animal that feels that it no longer has any reason to live reaches in the end a point when its remaining energies may actually be directed toward dying.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“They're all so much afraid of the Council that they're not afraid of anything else.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“A rabbit sneeze on the morning breeze sets homesick hearts aglow sitting with his rumps in a chicory clump and longing for a nice plump doe.”
― 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.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Who wants to hear about brave deeds when he’s ashamed of his own, and who likes an open, honest tale from someone he’s deceiving?”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. For them there is no winter food problem. They have fires and warm clothes. The winter cannot hurt them and therefore increases their sense of cleverness and security. For birds and animals, as for poor men, winter is another matter. Rabbits, like most wild animals, suffer hardship.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“Something terrible and wonderful and painful swelled inside Tess, but she could bear it. Tentatively she laid her head upon her sister's shoulder. "You never meant to hurt me."

"We sisters have a particular talent for hurting each other without meaning to," said Seraphina. She hesitated a moment and then leaned her cheek against the crown of Tess's head.

They sat that way for some time, watching the baby, talking quietly. They spoke of childbirth like they were veterans of the same war, comparing wounds, and Tess felt some of the scars on her heart loosen and dissolve.

Phina kissed her cheeks when she left. Tess marveled that she could feel so hurt and comforted at once, so empty and full. Here was a life lived in joy-utl, and she was capable and capacious enough to endure it.”
― Rachel Hartman, Tess of the Road

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
― Louis L'Amour

“Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.”
― Louis L'Amour, Matagorda/The First Fast Draw: Two Novels in One Volume

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning. ”
― Louis L'Amour

“Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Walking Drum

“Few of us ever live in the present. We are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone.”
― Louis L'Amour

“The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast,
and you miss all you are traveling for.”
― Louis L'Amour

“A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”
― Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man: A Memoir

“I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.”
― Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man: A Memoir

“I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen.”
― Louis L'Amour, Sackett's Land

“When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is.”
― Louis L'Amour, The Lonesome Gods

“Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else.”
― Louis L'Amour, Ride the River

“One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter - who was a child at the time - asked me, "Daddy, why are you writing so fast?" And I replied, "Because I want to see how the story turns out!”
― Louis L'Amour

“Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.”
― Louis L'Amour