James Herriot

“I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box.”

“Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.”

“I am never at my best in the early morning, especially a cold morning in the Yorkshire spring with a piercing March wind sweeping down from the fells, finding its way inside my clothing, nipping at my nose and ears.”

“I wish people would realize that animals are totally dependent on us, helpless, like children, a trust that is put upon us.”

“For years I used to bore my wife over lunch with stories about funny incidents.”

“There was no last animal I treated. When young farm lads started to help me over the gate into a field or a pigpen, to make sure the old fellow wouldn't fall, I started to consider retiring.”

“If a farmer calls me to a sick animal, he couldn't care less if I were George Bernard Shaw.”

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”

“I love writing about my job because I loved it, and it was a particularly interesting one when I was a young man. It was like holidays with pay to me.”

“I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.”

“I was helped by having a verbatim memory of what happened years ago, even if I can't remember what happened a couple of days ago.”

“I will write another book if I feel like it.”

“They can't find my house now because I keep it very quiet where I live.”

“I could do terrible things to people who dump unwanted animals by the roadside.”

“I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.”

“I think it was the fact that I liked it so much that made the writing just come out of me automatically.”

“And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly”