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

Acquiring the trick of listening to birds will teach you how better to enjoy life and how better to endure it

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.

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."

Nature is not horrible. Nature is not wonderful. Nature is not cruel. Nature is not beautiful. Nature only is.

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