A living countryside is not a luxury but a necessity for the human population; if you let conservation go hang until your pockets are jingling there will be a lot less to conserve

We can only truly be civilised people when we have regular and meaningful contact with the wild world

The comfort zone is always the most desirable place to be. But in settling for comfort, there is a price to pay and it comes in the death of ambition, of hope, of youth and the death of self.

If you are old and you wish to be young again, if only for a moment, try and identify a dragonfly.

Everybody loves birdsong. It's a human need... the sound of birds gives a deep, if sometimes almost unnoticed, pleasure

There was an advert I rather liked. Devastated woman: "I've just seen the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!" Husband: "Never mind, love, it's not the end of the world."

Football is based on desperation. All clubs are desperate in one form or another - desperate to succeed, desperate to survive, desperate to stay where they are, desperate that things get no worse, desperate to arrest the slide.