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. John Burnside Read Quote
As attractive as it is, the idea that nature can exist beyond our dangerous ‘instinct for happiness’ is never the whole story. John Burnside Read Quote
Usually, I would mistrust a book if it took that long to write. Usually, if it isn’t done in two years, I suspect there’s something wrong and throw it away. John Burnside Read Quote
With all the goodwill and local initiative in the world, we are not about to rewild anything until we change our way of thinking about our place in the creaturely world. John Burnside Read Quote
What we should be doing is saving habitats, not single species, no matter what their cuteness factor. John Burnside Read Quote
The conventional, and painfully artificial, separation of the human realm from the natural other is bound to perish, albeit over a period of time, until we are obliged to learn how to cultivate our gardens under the most demanding conditions. John Burnside Read Quote
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. John Burnside Read Quote
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. John Burnside Read Quote
My poems tend to be more celebratory and lyrical, and the novels so far pretty dark. Poetry doesn’t seem to me to be an appropriate tool for exploring that. John Burnside Read Quote
