Top 100 Richard Adams Quotes
#1. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.
Richard Adams
#2. Frith meant us to get back," replied Holly. "That's the real reason why we're here.
Richard Adams
#3. I am sorry for you with all my heart. But you cannot blame us, for you came to kill us if you could.
Richard Adams
#4. It's the place that worries you," said Hazel. "I don't like it myself, but it won't go on forever.
Richard Adams
#5. My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.
Richard Adams
#7. There's terrible evil in the world."
It comes from men," said Holly. "All other elil do what they have to do and Frith moves them as he moves us. They live on the earth and they need food. Men will never rest till they've spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.
Richard Adams
#8. Nevertheless, the number of hoots I give for them is restricted to less than two.
Richard Adams
#9. 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
#10. A magpie, seeing some light-colored object conspicuous on the empty slope, flew closer to look. but all that lay there was a splintered peg and a twisted length of wire.
Richard Adams
#11. Silflay hraka, u embleer rah," replied Bigwig.
Richard Adams
#12. Most of them had not understood Blackberry's discovery of the raft and at once forgot it.
Richard Adams
#14. If a rabbit gave advice and the advice wasn't accepted, he immediately forgot it, and so did everyone else.
Richard Adams
#15. Bigwig: "I can't think why he didn't convince Threarah."
Hazel: "Because Threarah doesn't like anything he hasn't thought of for himself.
Richard Adams
#16. They're all so much afraid of the Council that they're not afraid of anything else.
Richard Adams
#17. The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.
Richard Adams
#18. Rabbits need dignity and, above all, the will to accept their fate.
Richard Adams
#19. Why, all of you," answered the other, surprised. "You don't want to stay out in the rain, do you?
Richard Adams
#20. 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
#21. Hazel, like nearly all wild animals, was unaccustomed to look up at the sky. What he thought of as the sky was the horizon, usually broken by trees and hedges.
Richard Adams
#22. Bluebell: Please, sir, I'm only a little [car] and I've left all my petrol on the grass. So if you don't mind eating the grass, sir, while I give this lady a ride-
Hazel: Bluebell, shut up!
Richard Adams
#23. You may think it's a wonderful thing to be saved by Lord Frith in his power. How many rabbits has that happened to, I wonder? But I tell you, it was far more frightening than being chased by the Efrafans.
Richard Adams
#24. You needn't worry about them," said his companion. "They'll be alright - and thousands like them. If you'll come along, I'll show you what I mean.
Richard Adams
#25. A land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Richard Adams
#26. There is not a day or night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit's. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here, what is, is what must be.
Richard Adams
#28. You're trying to eat grass that isn't there. Why don't you give it a chance to grow?
Richard Adams
#30. Now Bigwig's put their backs up, and they'll think they've got to go on because he makes them. I want them to go on because they can see it's the only thing to do.
Richard Adams
#31. Captain," said Bluebell, "do you know what the first blade of grass said to the second blade of grass?" Hazel looked at him sharply, but Holly replied, "Well?" "It said, 'Look, there's a rabbit! We're in danger!
Richard Adams
#32. Racing through the ocher light, Bigwig was impelled by a frenzy of tension and energy. He did not feel the wound in his shoulder. The storm was his own. The storm would defeat Efrafa.
Richard Adams
#34. I certainly think that 10 to 20 years from now, clearly the majority of veterinarians will be women.
Richard Adams
#35. I don't know where ideas come from. They come from outer space or God, if you like, or from my subconscious mind. But I never go ou self-consciously looking for a story.
Richard Adams
#36. 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
#37. I'd rather succeed in doing what we can than fail to do what we can't.
Richard Adams
#38. 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
#39. That wasn't why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves.
Richard Adams
#41. The thinker dies, but his thoughts are beyond the reach of destruction. Men are mortal; but ideas are immortal.
Richard Adams
#43. He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.
Richard Adams
#44. I'm sick and tired of it," he said, "It's the same all the time. 'These are my claws, so this is my cowslip." 'These are my teeth, so this is my burrow.' I'll tell you, if I ever get into the Owsla, I'll treat outskirters with a bit of decency.
Richard Adams
#45. I've always said that Watership Down is not a book for children. I say: it's a book, and anyone who wants to read it can read it.
Richard Adams
#46. Rabbits live close to death and when death comes closer than usual, thinking about survival leaves little room for anything else.
Richard Adams
#47. To come to the end of a time of anxiety and fear! To feel the cloud that hung over us lift and disperse - that cloud that dulled the heart and made happiness no more than a memory! This at least is one joy that must have been known by almost every living creature.
Richard Adams
#48. Narrow lanes climb both slopes and come together in a great ring of elm trees which encircles the flat summit. Any wind
even the slightest
draws from the height of the elms a rushing sound, multifoliate and powerful.
Richard Adams
#49. You can't call your life your own: and in return you have safety, if it's worth having at the price you pay.
Richard Adams
#50. Wisdom is found on the desolate hillside ... where none comes to feed, and the stony bank where the rabbit scratches a hole in vain.
Richard Adams
#51. Why do the men come, do you suppose?" "Who knows why men do anything?
Richard Adams
#52. I should hurry, then, if I were you," said Blackberry. "The sun will be down soon." "Hah!" said Bigwig. "If I meet a stoat, it'd better look out, that's all. I'll bring you one back tomorrow, shall I?
Richard Adams
#53. But I have learned that with creatures one loves, suffering is not the only thing for which one may pity them. A rabbit who does not know when a gift has made him safe is poorer than a slug, even though he may think otherwise himself.
Richard Adams
#54. He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running.
Richard Adams
#55. Although there was no enemy or danger to be perceived, they felt the apprehension and doubt of those who have come unaware upon some awe-inspiring place where they themselves are paltry fellows of no account.
Richard Adams
#56. Carrying money, food and the seal ring of Bel-ka-Trazet, set out alone for Lak. BOOK VI
Richard Adams
#58. 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
#60. All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
Richard Adams
#61. To be dead may be nothing, yet who relishes the business of dying?
Richard Adams
#62. I dare say a good many ... would have kept quiet and thought about keeping on the right side of the Chief, but I'm afraid I'm not much good at that.
Richard Adams
#64. Sooner or later, everyone has to meet his match.
Richard Adams
#65. A thing can be true and still be desperate folly, Hazel.
Richard Adams
#66. Rowf's rump slid suddenly forward as smoothly as a turd from a healthy anus.
Richard Adams
#67. Stubbs may have envisaged the skeleton inside the horse, but most of us do not
Richard Adams
#68. Watership Down is a real place, like all the places in the book. It lies in north Hampshire, about six miles southwest of Newbury and two miles west of Kingsclere.
Richard Adams
#69. 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
#70. 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.
Richard Adams
#71. He looked as though he knew how to take care of himself. There was a shrewd, buoyant air about him as he sat up, looked round and rubbed both front paws over his nose.
Richard Adams
#72. Hazel, watching, lent help here and there and encouraged the others.
Richard Adams
#73. And from that day to this, no power on earth can keep a rabbit out of a vegetable garden, for El-ahrairah prompts them with a thousand tricks, the best in the world.
Richard Adams
#74. I distinguish two types of human beings, Love people, who love the sky and the flowers, and Power People, who are essentially sold on naked power.
Richard Adams
#75. We are all human and fall short of where we need to be. We must never stop trying to be the best we can be.
Richard Adams
#76. Alighted near Hazel and Fiver. "How's Holly?" asked Hazel. "'E sad," said Kehaar. "'E say you no come back." Then he added, "Mees Clover, she ready for mudder." "That's good," said Hazel. "Is anyone doing anything about it?" "Ya, ya, ees all to fight." "Oh, well, I suppose it'll sort itself out.
Richard Adams
#77. People who record birdsong generally do it very early
before six o'clock
if they can. Soon after that, the invasion of distant noise in most woodland becomes too constant and too loud.
Richard Adams
#79. 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.
Richard Adams
#80. Plot as such is not a major ingredient in my novels ... it's often better to sail on the unconscious sea.
Richard Adams
#81. Well,' replied Tony, 'I think [Christ's] line would be the same as it always has been - that [sex without marriage] is understandable and forgivable, but wrong to the extent that it's less than the best.
Richard Adams
#82. We go by the will of the black rabbit. when he calls you, you have to go
Richard Adams
#84. Thayli, you are very brave. Are you cunning, too?
Richard Adams
#85. If you want to bless me you can bless my bottom, for it is sticking out of the hole.
Richard Adams
#86. Like children in a dark room, like wayfarers passing a graveyard at night, the four men in the canoe filled the surrounding darkness with the fear from their own hearts.
Richard Adams
#87. And at once he went on with his burden, as though afraid that he might already have said too much in this country where the past was sharp splinters embedded in men's minds and an ill-judged word a false step in the dark.
Richard Adams
#88. Lots of little Bigwigs, Hazel! Think of that, and tremble!
Richard Adams
#89. Hoi, hoi u embleer hrair! M'saion ule' hraka vair!
Richard Adams
#90. They want to be natural, the anti-social little beasts. They just don't realize that everyone's good depends on everyone's cooperation.
Richard Adams
#93. Dangerous thing, a name. Someone might catch hold of you by it, mightn't they?
Richard Adams
#94. We all have to meet our match sometime or other.
Richard Adams
#95. When they got there, the first thing they saw was the man himself, with a white stick burning away in his mouth, cutting row after row of frosted cabbages. Rowsby Woof was with him, wagging his tail and jumping about in a ridiculous manner. After
Richard Adams
#96. I think we ought to do all we can to make these creatures friendly. It might turn out to be well worth the trouble.
Richard Adams
#97. Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.
Richard Adams
#98. Those are rabbits down there, trotting along like a lot of squirrels with nuts. How can that be right?
Richard Adams
#99. My Chief Rabbit has told me to stay and defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here.
Bigwig
Richard Adams
#100. Now, Rowsby Woof was the man's dog; and he was the most objectionable, malicious, disgusting brute that ever licked a man's hand. He
Richard Adams
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