I've always said that Watership Down is not a book for children. I say: it's a book, and anyone who wants to read it can read it.

If you want to bless me you can bless my bottom, for it is sticking out of the hole.

To come to the end of a time of anxiety and fear! To feel the cloud that hung over us lift and disperse - that cloud that dulled the heart and made happiness no more than a memory! This at least is one joy that must have been known by almost every living creature.

People who record birdsong generally do it very early-before six o'clock-if they can. Soon after that, the invasion of distant noise in most woodland becomes too constant and too loud.

I have learned that with creatures one loves, suffering is not the only thing for which one may pity them. A rabbit who does not know when a gift has made him safe is poorer than a slug, even though he may think otherwise himself.

The Threarah doesn't like anything he hasn't thought of for himself.

Dangerous thing, a name. Someone might catch hold of you by it, mightn't they?