Scottish - Writer | March 19, 1955 -
What the flamingo teaches a child, at that subliminal level where animal encounters work, is that gravity is not just a limitation, but also a possible partner in an intriguing, potentially joyful game.
John Burnside
WorkAnimalChildGamePartner
Once upon a time, forests were repositories of magic for the human race.
TimeMagicRaceHumanHuman Race
This is a truth that should be repeated like a mantra: to have any chance of a ful - filling life, we require not only clean air and a steady climate, but also an abundance of meadows and woodlands, rivers and oceans, teeming with life and the mass existence of other living creatures.
LifeTruthChanceAbundanceLiving
Hunted for sport by the rich, then driven from large tracts of its natural habitat by agricultural and housing development, the giant panda deserves better than to be scrubbed from conservation's ledger books through false accounting.
AccountingRichBetterDevelopment
Snow isn't just pretty. It also cleanses our world and our senses, not just of the soot and grime of a Fife mining town but also of a kind of weary familiarity, a taken-for-granted quality to which our eyes are all too susceptible.
SnowEyesQualityWorldKindPretty
We do not need to be heroes to save the world; all we need is humility, a critical view of the commercial and political interests of those who would mislead us into wrongdoing, and a sense of wonder.
HumilityWorldViewPoliticalWonder
For a boy of ten, used to the coal bings and rust-coloured burns of Cowdenbeath, the fields and woodland of Kingswood, with its overgrown but stately avenue of copper-barked sequoias, felt like a local version of paradise.
ParadiseBoyFieldsUsedCoalLike
A forest - the word dates back to the Norman occupancy, when it meant an area set aside for England's violent new masters to hunt boar and deer - is necessarily larger than a wood. It belonged to the king and was a fit place for his recreation.
KingForestBackPlaceNewWood
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.
FatherChildMeToughBigTough Guy
I remember playing the Mad Hatter in a school play and feeling very comfortable in the character.
CharacterSchoolRememberMadPlay
Sadly, bird illustration has always been an under-appreciated art.
ArtBirdAlwaysBeenIllustration
It may be a cliche, but cliche or not, I fear the day when the only marsh harriers or peregrines I can look at are in paintings by Joseph Wolf or Bruno Liljefors - and no matter how beautiful those works may be, life is the great thing: life, life, life.
LifeFearBeautifulGreatDayWolf
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