48 John Burnside Quotes for You to Enjoy

John Burnside

Scottish Writer

Born: Mar 19, 1955

Great Life Me Think Time World

Related authors: Alexander McCall Smith Armando Iannucci Frances Wright Grant Morrison Henry Drummond Jane Welsh Carlyle Robert Louis Stevenson Steven Moffat

The animal encounter poem is now so distinct a genre that it would be possible to create a full-length anthology from deer encounter poems alone, and many varieties of experience would emerge from such an exercise. John Burnside

Alone Animal Experience Distinct Possible Would Would-Be Emerge Poem Poems Genre Exercise Anthology Encounter Create Many Now Deer

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. John Burnside

Life Day Me Halloween Old My Life Important Year All My Life Point Most Calendar Been The Most Important Turning Turning Point Pagan

Clearly, any well-kept garden will be a source of pleasure in the summer months; in the bleak urban midwinter, however, there are few activities more likely to energise the spirit than a botanical walk. John Burnside

Garden Walk Will Few Summer Months Pleasure Spirit More Bleak Clearly Likely However Source Than Any Urban Activities

The son of a Fife mining town sledder of coal-bings, bottle-forager, and picture-house troglodyte, I was decidedly urban and knew little about native fauna, other than the handful of birds I saw on trips to the beach or Sunday walks. John Burnside

Son Sunday Walks Other Birds Saw Mining About Trips Beach Knew Town Handful Than Native Decidedly Urban Little Fife

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

Beautiful Most Beautiful Made Seen Mask Wolf Objects Most Around Ever

I remember a nightfall from childhood, far from home and off the known track: I'd been walking with some older boys, but they ran off and left me, and as darkness hurried in, I suddenly realised how far from home I was. John Burnside

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. John Burnside

Life Beautiful Day Great Fear Matter Wolf Those Marsh Only Joseph Look Great Thing Cliche How May Works Paintings Thing

When I was ten years old, my family left a cold, damp prefab in West Fife and moved to Corby, Northamptonshire, where my father quickly found work at what was then the Stewarts & Lloyds steelworks. John Burnside

Work Family Old Father Cold Damp Ten Ten Years West Years Left Quickly Moved Where Fife Then Found

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. John Burnside

Eyes Quality World Weary Too Our Our World Kind Mining Pretty Town Also Familiarity Snow Susceptible Just Senses Which Fife

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. John Burnside

Life Truth Living Teeming Other Air Steady Only Clean Clean Air Rivers Abundance Mass Like Also Climate Oceans Repeated Existence Any Meadows Require Should Mantra Filling Creatures Living Creatures Chance

High Alpine meadows, like their near relatives prairie, desert and certain varieties of wetland, teach us to consider the world from a fresh perspective, to open our eyes and take account of what we have missed, reminding us that, in spite of our emphasis on the visual in everyday speech, we see so very little of the world. John Burnside

Eyes World Perspective Relatives Everyday Consider Our High Visual See Spite Take Open Emphasis Reminding Missed Like Fresh Prairie Very Account Meadows Little Us Certain Teach Desert Near Speech

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

Art Bird Illustration Sadly Always Been

In time, we will have to recognise that it is not 'nature' that we need to protect, but ourselves, and we can only do this by abandoning the old, grandiose, profit-seeking schemes so beloved of our masters and learning to till the soil, live to scale, and live within our means. John Burnside

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

Birds Our Nuts Ancestors Find Snare Woods Fuel Set Gathered

It is common knowledge now that we depend on insects for our continued existence; that, without key pollinators, the human population would collapse in less than a decade. John Burnside

Knowledge Key Insects Depend Our Collapse Would Without Continue Existence Than Decade Human Common Common Knowledge Human Population Less Population Now

With each passing decade, history becomes less real for us, less immediate and essential to our way of life, and so, like 'green' nature, more of a commodity or an advertising gimmick. John Burnside

The poem builds in my mind and sits there, as if in a register, until the poem, or a piece of a longer poem, is finished enough to write down. I can hold several lines in my head for quite some time, but as soon as they are written down, the register clears, as it were, and I have to work with what is on the paper. John Burnside

Work Time Mind Finished Down Enough Paper Several Some Poem Write Written Written Down Head Soon Longer Clears Piece Until Builds Were Lines Quite Quite Some Time Hold Register

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

Believe Others Mad See Someone Sees He Person Really Who

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