“[Writing is] largely a matter of application and hard work, or writing and rewriting endlessly until you are satisfied that you have said what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible. For me that usually means many, many revisions.”

The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.

When we go down to the low-tide line, we enter a world that is as old as the earth itself – the primeval meeting place of the elements of earth and water, a place of compromise and conflit and eternal change.

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature.

Why would anyone believe it is possible to lay down such barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called insecticides, but biocides.

I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life – past, present, and future.

The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster.

The beauty of the living world I was trying to save has always been uppermost in my mind – that, and anger at the senseless, brutish things that were being done. . . . Now I can believe I have at least helped a little.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

There is no drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of the abyss, that does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that create the tide.

Conservation is a cause that has no end. There is no point at which we will say our work is finished.

Autumn comes to the sea with a fresh blaze of phosphorescence, when every wave crest is aflame. Here and there the whole surface may glow with sheets of cold fire, while below schools of fish pour through the water like molten metal.

Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species — man — acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.

The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil.

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement.

Nowhere on the shore is the relation of a creature to its surroundings a matter of a single cause and effect; each living thing is bound to its world by many threads, weaving the intricate design of the fabric of life.

By suggestion and example, I believe children can be helped to hear the many voices about them. Take Time to listen and talk about the voices of the earth and what they mean-the majestic voice of thunder, the winds, the sound of surf or flowing streams.

The law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.

For now I have to make do with fantasising about me and you, you and me, and what we will never ever be again since you’ve been ignoring me for weeks now. And I’m at the end of my patience as well as ideas of how to catch your attention.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how well we have performed or what we have accomplished—a life without heart is not worth living.

I write till the end at least a draft of a play or a novel; but sometimes,

We chose a place all the way at the end of an industrial park.

We have always said there are two ways to resolve Syria, and both will end up with the same result: a Syria without Bashar Assad.

Nearly every one of these – from R2D2 to Hellboy’s revolver – ends with the paint job. And it’s not just cosmetic.

The odds and ends of your mental surplus you carelessly throw at the world, one wants to be at a loss, in a maze; amazed, and amazingly unabashed.