A farmer once told me one of the greatest luxuries of his life was to wake up early only to go back to sleep again.

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

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.

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

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.