Gerald Durrell Quotes

Apenas había tenido tiempo de identificarlo como un delfín cuando me encontré en medio de una manada. Se elevaron a mi alrededor suspirando con fuerza, brillantes sus negros lomos al arquearse a la luz de la luna. Debían ser unos ocho, y uno salió tan cerca que con nadar tres brazadas podría haber tocado su cabeza de ébano. Jugando entre saltos y resoplidos cruzaron la bahía, y yo les seguí a nado, contemplando cómo subían a la superficie, respiraban hondo y volvían a zambullirse, dejando sólo un creciente anillo de espuma en el agua arrugada. Finalmente, y como obedeciendo a una señal, se volvieron y enfilaron hacia la boca de la bahía y la lejana costa de Albania; yo me erguí para verlos alejarse, nadando por el blanco surco de luz, con un centelleo en el lomo al elevarse y dejarse caer pesadamente en el agua templada. Tras ellos quedó una estela de grandes burbujas que temblaban y relucían un instante cual lunas en miniatura antes de desaparecer bajo las ondas.

Overflowing with the milk of human kindness, the family had invited everyone they could think of, including people they cordially disliked.

Here Sally’s hooves crushed the herbs underfoot and the warm air became redolent with the scent of sage and thyme.

Firstly what does conservation mean? It is not merely the saving from extinction of such species as the Notornis, the Leadbetters Possum or the Leathery Turtle; this is important work but it is only part of the problem. You cannot begin to preserve any species of animal unless you preserve the habitat in which it dwells. Disturb or destroy that habitat and you will exterminate the species as surely as if you had shot it. So conservation means that you have to preserve forest and grassland, river and lake, even the sea itself. This is not only vital for the preservation of animal life generally, but for the future existence of man himself — a point that seems to escape many people.

If some people want to believe in Jesus, or Mohammed, or Buddha, or their ancestors, who is to say which is right and which wrong? It seems to me that most of the religions in the world are too dogmatic. They preach the 'live and let live' philosophy, but rarely do they practise it.

Breakfast was, on the whole, a leisurely and silent meal, for no member of the family was very talkative at that hour. By the end of the meal the influence of the coffee, toast, and eggs made itself felt, and we started to revive, to tell each other what we intended to do, why we intended to do it, and then argue earnestly as to whether each had made a wise decision.

The Daffodil-Yellow Villa

The new villa was enormous, a tall, square Venetian mansion, with faded daffodil-yellow walls, green shutters, and a fox-red roof. It stood on a hill overlooking the sea, surrounded by unkempt olive groves and silent orchards of lemon and orange trees.

... the little walled and sunken garden that ran along one side of the house, its wrought-iron gates scabby with rust, had roses, anemones and geraniums sprawling across the weed-grown paths ...

... there were fifteen acres of garden to explore, a vast new paradise sloping down to the shallow, tepid sea.

Are we having a plague of owls?’ Larry inquired. ‘Are they attacking the larder and zooming out with bunches of chops in their talons?

there came from the olive groves outside the fuchsia hedge the incessant shimmering cries of the cicadas. If the curious, blurring heat haze produced a sound, it would be exactly the strange, chiming cries of these insects.

Tea would arrive, the cakes squatting on cushions of cream, toast in a melting shawl of butter, cups agleam and a faint wisp of steam rising from the teapot shawl.

I would awake early, breakfast hurriedly under the tangerine trees already fragrant with the warmth of the early sun,

In conservation, the motto should always be 'never say die'.

That August, when we arrived, the island lay breathless and sun-drugged in a smouldering, peacock-blue sea under a sky that had been faded to a pale powder-blue by the fierce rays of the sun.

She lifted her hand again and waved. It seemed to me, in the gloom, that the flowers had moved closer to her, had crowded eagerly about her bed, as though waiting for her to tell them something. A ravaged old queen, lying in state, surrounded by her whispering court of flowers.

The villa that Spiro had found was shaped not unlike a brick and was a bright crushed-strawberry pink with green shutters. It crouched in a cathedral-like grove of olives that sloped down the hillside to the sea, and it was surrounded by a pocket-handkerchief-size garden, the flower-beds laid out with a geometrical accuracy so dear to the Victorians, and the whole thing guarded by a tall, thick hedge of fuchsias that rustled mysteriously with birds.