![Gerald Durrell quotes: Gradually the magic of the island [Corfu] settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen.](http://www.wisefamousquotes.com/images/gerald-durrell-quotes-803468.jpg "Gerald Durrell quotes: Gradually the magic of the island [Corfu] settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen.")
Overflowing with the milk of human kindness, the family had invited everyone they could think of, including people they cordially disliked. 
Larry was always full of ideas about things of which he had no experience. 
So I went instead and tasted Taki's new white wine. Spiridion! what a wine ... like the blood of a dragon and smooth as a fish ... 
But throughout my life I have rarely if ever achieved what I wanted by tackling it in a logical fashion. 
They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over, and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something. 
My childhood in Corfu shaped my life. If I had the craft of Merlin, I would give every child the gift of my childhood. 
I said I *liked* being half-educated; you were so much more *surprised* at everything when you were ignorant. 
There is a pleasure sure In being mad, which none but madmen know.
Dryden, The Spanish Friar II, i
I believe that all children should be surrounded by books and animals. 
The uncivilized behavior of some human beings in a zoo has to be seen to be believed. 
There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in. 
In conservation, the motto should always be 'never say die'. 
Animals generally return the love you lavish on them by a swift bite in passing-not unlike friends and wives. 