14 Quotes by James Rebanks

I didn’t know anyone in London, and I never wanted to be there. This was not how my life was meant to be, but needs must. It was as if the gods were showing me how tough everyone else’s lives were, and what I had left behind. I understood for the first time why people wanted to escape to places like the Lake District. I understood then what National Parks were for, so that people whose lives are always like this can escape and feel the wind in their hair and the sun on their faces.

It was like his code of honour. Work that needs doing should be done. Work is its own reward. Never step back from work or you look bad.

The only way out was to go back the next year and buy his sheep and pay over the odds to make up for it, so he did. Neither of these men cared remotely about “maximizing profit” in the short-term in the way a modern business person in a city would; they both valued their good names and their reputations for integrity far more highly than making a quick buck. If you said you would do a thing, you’d better do it.

Books were considered a sign of idleness at best and dangerous at worst.

If you read more, worked harder, thought things through smartly, or wrote or argued better than other people, you won.