John Burnside quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by John Burnside

John Burnside Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from John Burnside on Wise Famous Quotes.

Andoya is in a different world, set at the northern edge of Europe in what seems to be a time and weather of its own.

'The Gardener' is more than a marvellous collection of images by a master photographer.

Once upon a time, forests were repositories of magic for the human race.

I moved south when I was 11 years old, moved to England. I've lived in all kinds of places, all parts of England.

For 10 years, I gave away my possessions every year and moved on to a new place.

With human beings it could be argued that all music-making is, in essence, grounded in improvisation.

I remember playing the Mad Hatter in a school play and feeling very comfortable in the character.

My second, third and fourth novels were mistakes, essentially.

Poetry stands or falls by its music.

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.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

I went for a walk in the Arctic Circle without map or compass. Fortunately, I was only lost for hours, not days.

I'm an insomniac, so my perfect reader is probably another insomniac.

Thatcherite economic policy was most acutely felt in the coal industry, where tens of thousands of jobs were lost as pits were shut down.

My first book was a car crash. I tried to find all the copies and destroy them.

The older I get, the happier my childhood becomes.

I think humans have to learn a new way of dwelling on this earth. A way of living with their companions: animals, plants and fish.

Sadly, bird illustration has always been an under-appreciated art.

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.

You can't sit down and decide what you want to write about.

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.

My editor, Robin Robertson, is one of this country's finest poets, so I listen to him when he offers advice.

I'm interested in the way language is used to navigate the world around us.

Our ancestors went to the woods to find fuel; they set snares there for birds and gathered nuts and fungi.

'Moby-Dick' really threw me. I read it when I was 14 and my best friends were books. It changed the way I looked at the world.

'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.

As a child, I was consumed with a near-obsessive curiosity about what the world felt like for other creatures.

If nature offers no home, then we must make a home one way or another. The only question is how.

One of the most beautiful objects I have ever seen was a Yupik wolf mask, made in Nunivak in around 1890.

It's important to have quiet time and isolation.

Today, however, she didn't go looking for urchins or broken shells. She simply walked to the end of the earth and stood a while.

It takes a true encounter to realise that real animals, wild animals, have all but passed from our lives.

No one could say it was my choice to kill the twins, any more than it was my decision to bring them into the world.

I realised I'd spent a lot of time in my poetry trying to find a way of talking about that whereof we cannot speak.

A man was defined, in my father's circles, by what he could bear, the pain he could shrug off, the warmth or comfort he could deny himself.

All my life, I have been a celebrant of Halloween. For me, it is the most important day of the year, the turning point in the old pagan calendar.

I don't like the term 'mental illness.' I'd rather just say 'mad.' Just like I always say 'loony bin,' not 'mental hospital.'

If I tell you a story, you can choose to believe me, or you can question it.

The fabric of a garden is determined as much by its textures as by its tonal range and architectural flair.

I always wanted to be a painter. I loved painting. I went on three different art courses but had no talent whatsoever.

And I wake, in the cage of my bones,
on the same cold ground.

Irrationality interests me more than anything: sometimes it's very dangerous, but it can be incredibly beautiful.

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.

The only pleasure in redecorating or moving house comes from stumbling across books that I'd almost forgotten I owned.

He lied all the time even when there was no need to lie [ ... ] He needed a _history_, a sense of self. [Burnside on his father, p. 22]

Sometimes, when the wind hits hard and icicles form on the sea cliffs, we can all come together - and at those times, we are at our best.

As attractive as it is, the idea that nature can exist beyond our dangerous 'instinct for happiness' is never the whole story.

What we should be doing is saving habitats, not single species, no matter what their cuteness factor.

One day I was talking about what I was going to do next, and just found myself announcing it: 'I'm going to write a book about my father.'