121 Quotes by John Burnside

There is a red sandy beach in the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia that is unlike any other shore landscape I have ever seen. The world's highest tides wash its shores, and the soft cliffs of Blomidon Provincial Park are constantly crumbling away; whole trees will occasionally slide down to the sea to decay slowly in the wind and brine.

The only pleasure in redecorating or moving house comes from stumbling across books that I'd almost forgotten I owned.

The fabric of a garden is determined as much by its textures as by its tonal range and architectural flair.

Many of the birds Audubon painted are now extinct, and still we go on killing them, more or less casually, with our pesticides and wires and machinery.

'Moby-Dick' really threw me. I read it when I was 14 and my best friends were books. It changed the way I looked at the world.

My first book was a car crash. I tried to find all the copies and destroy them.

My editor, Robin Robertson, is one of this country's finest poets, so I listen to him when he offers advice.

My father was this big, tough guy, almost heroic in proportion to me as a child. It was only later that I saw how fearful he was.

People will occasionally ask me if I understand what it's like to be lonely. And the truth is I don't, because for me, solitariness is a blessing, a gift. Me, I get on fine with myself.