"If naturalists go to heaven (about which there is considerable ecclesiastical doubt), I hope that I will be furnished with a troop of kakapo to amuse me in the evening instead of television."
- Gerald Durrell
"It's all your fault, Mother,' said Larry austerely; 'you shouldn't have brought us up to be so selfish.' 'I like that!' exclaimed Mother. 'I never did anything of the sort!' 'Well, we didn't get as se..."
"My childhood in Corfu shaped my life. If I had the craft of Merlin, I would give every child the gift of my childhood."
"Gradually the magic of the island [Corfu] settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen."
"We all travelled light, taking with us only what we considered to be the bare essentials of life. When we opened our luggage for Customs inspection, the contents of our bags were a fair indication of ..."
"Overflowing with the milk of human kindness, the family had invited everyone they could think of, including people they cordially disliked."
"She would seize every opportunity to dive into the bathroom, in a swirl of white towels, and once in there she was as hard to dislodge as a limpet from a rock."
"Theodore had an apparently inexhaustible fund of knowledge about everything, but he imparted this knowledge with a sort of meticulous diffidence that made you feel he was not so much teaching you some..."
"In conservation, the motto should always be 'never say die'."
"I shall always attribute my uncertain start in New Zealand to the fact that I was introduced too early to what is knows as the 'five o'clock swill'. The phrase has, when you consider it, a wonderful p..."