175 Quotes by Richard Adams

Why should he think me cruel Or that he is betrayed? I’d have him love the thing that was Before the world was made. W. B. Yeats, A Woman Young and Old.

Rain before sunset and we’ll be in shelter.

Why do the men come, do you suppose?” asked Fiver. “Who knows why men do anything? They may drive cows or sheep in the fields, or cut wood in the copses. What does it matter? I’d rather dodge a man than a stoat or a fox.

Go,” said Hazel, firmly and quietly, “or we’ll kill you.

What is this stuff, do you know?” he asked. “No, I don’t,” said Hazel. “I’ve never seen it before.” “There’s a lot we don’t know,” said Blackberry. “About this place, I mean. The plants are new, the smells are new. We’re going to need some new ideas ourselves.” “Well, you’re the fellow for ideas,” said Hazel. “I never know anything until you tell me.

Sheep used to have wings. One flew into the sky and all the others followed. They took their wings off while feeding in the warm sun but the wind blew away their wings so they couldn’t fly anymore. They had to return to earth by drifting to where the sky curves down and touches the land, and then walk round the long way... i like that...

Think yourself lucky,” said Bigwig, bleeding and cursing, “that I don’t kill you.

For that matter, Odysseus himself might have borrowed a trick or two from the rabbit hero, for he is very old and was never at a loss for a trick to deceive his enemies.

They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference. It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now.