John Burnside Quotes
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Given the right information to help them decide, people will opt for conditions that benefit our creaturely neighbours, even where they have no particular interest in larks or cuckoo wasps - because those conditions benefit us.
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A modern arboretum brings us that ancient forest and, with it, a changed apprehension of time, a renewed appreciation of the elegance of natural form and a renewed sense of wonder at the variety of the world we inhabit.
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The older I get, the happier my childhood becomes.
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'The Asylum Dance' was written after I'd moved back to Scotland and was a response to moving to my old home area of Fife.
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When you have a child, you think about your personal history and what you offer them as a larger narrative, and I realised I knew nothing about my father's circumstances other than what he'd told me.
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I'm interested in the way language is used to navigate the world around us.
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I really like to try my hand at everything, and I think it's probably dangerous to let oneself be pigeon-holed, not necessarily by other people, but in one's own mind.
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I moved south when I was 11 years old, moved to England. I've lived in all kinds of places, all parts of England.
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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.
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Anyone who has ever stopped to watch a hawk in flight will know that this is one of the natural world's most elegant phenomena.
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I remember playing the Mad Hatter in a school play and feeling very comfortable in the character.
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Sadly, bird illustration has always been an under-appreciated art.
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Every time I write a book, I think how I could be doing it better to please people - a nicer book with nicer characters - but I just can't.
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I remember when I first encountered anthropocentrism. I was in primary school and, in preparation for our confirmation, the class was learning about the afterlife.
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Irrationality interests me more than anything: sometimes it's very dangerous, but it can be incredibly beautiful.
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If nature offers no home, then we must make a home one way or another. The only question is how.
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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.
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The woods were a boon; all too often, the forest offered danger and mystery. Yet it could be liberating. If you entered that wild place on its own terms, you might be accorded wisdom.
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For 10 years, I gave away my possessions every year and moved on to a new place.
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It is common knowledge now that we depend on insects for our continued existence; that, without key pollinators, the human population would collapse in less than a decade.
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A mad person isn't someone who sees what isn't there; he's someone who sees what is there but that others can't see. I really believe that.
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I went for a walk in the Arctic Circle without map or compass. Fortunately, I was only lost for hours, not days.
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With each passing decade, history becomes less real for us, less immediate and essential to our way of life, and so, like 'green' nature, more of a commodity or an advertising gimmick.
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High Alpine meadows, like their near relatives prairie, desert and certain varieties of wetland, teach us to consider the world from a fresh perspective, to open our eyes and take account of what we have missed, reminding us that, in spite of our emphasis on the visual in everyday speech, we see so very little of the world.