John Burnside Quotes
Collection of top 49 famous quotes about John Burnside
John Burnside Quotes & Sayings
Happy to read and share the best inspirational John Burnside quotes, sayings and quotations 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.
— John Burnside
'The Gardener' is more than a marvellous collection of images by a master photographer.
— John Burnside
I moved south when I was 11 years old, moved to England. I've lived in all kinds of places, all parts of England.
— John Burnside
With human beings it could be argued that all music-making is, in essence, grounded in improvisation.
— John Burnside
I remember playing the Mad Hatter in a school play and feeling very comfortable in the character.
— John Burnside
My second, third and fourth novels were mistakes, essentially.
— John Burnside
Poetry stands or falls by its music.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
I went for a walk in the Arctic Circle without map or compass. Fortunately, I was only lost for hours, not days.
— John Burnside
Thatcherite economic policy was most acutely felt in the coal industry, where tens of thousands of jobs were lost as pits were shut down.
— John Burnside
The older I get, the happier my childhood becomes.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
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
You can't sit down and decide what you want to write about.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
My editor, Robin Robertson, is one of this country's finest poets, so I listen to him when he offers advice.
— John Burnside
Our ancestors went to the woods to find fuel; they set snares there for birds and gathered nuts and fungi.
— John Burnside
'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.
— John Burnside
'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.
— John Burnside
As a child, I was consumed with a near-obsessive curiosity about what the world felt like for other creatures.
— John Burnside
If nature offers no home, then we must make a home one way or another. The only question is how.
— John Burnside
One of the most beautiful objects I have ever seen was a Yupik wolf mask, made in Nunivak in around 1890.
— John Burnside
It's important to have quiet time and isolation.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
It takes a true encounter to realise that real animals, wild animals, have all but passed from our lives.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
I don't like the term 'mental illness.' I'd rather just say 'mad.' Just like I always say 'loony bin,' not 'mental hospital.'
— John Burnside
The fabric of a garden is determined as much by its textures as by its tonal range and architectural flair.
— John Burnside
I always wanted to be a painter. I loved painting. I went on three different art courses but had no talent whatsoever.
— John Burnside
And I wake, in the cage of my bones,on the same cold ground. — John Burnside
Irrationality interests me more than anything: sometimes it's very dangerous, but it can be incredibly beautiful.
— John Burnside
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
The only pleasure in redecorating or moving house comes from stumbling across books that I'd almost forgotten I owned.
— John Burnside
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]
— John Burnside
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.
— John Burnside
As attractive as it is, the idea that nature can exist beyond our dangerous 'instinct for happiness' is never the whole story.
— John Burnside
What we should be doing is saving habitats, not single species, no matter what their cuteness factor.
— John Burnside
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.'
— John Burnside