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Gerald Durrell QUOTES

Gerald Durrell QUOTES

141 " How I envy you your ability to be inarticulate in the face of Fate. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

142 " Al llegar a este punto se le llenaron los ojos de lágrimas; se sacó de abajo del ala un pañuelo muy grande de lunares y se sonó el pico.

—¡Así es! —continuó entre sollozos—. ¿Y qué creis que le pasa a todas las palabras que no se usan?

—¿Qué les pasa?— preguntó Penelopé, con los ojos como platos.

—Pues que, si no se les cuida y se les permite hacer ejercicio, se desvanecen, y acaban por desaparecer, las pobrecitas —dijo Loro—. En eso consiste mi trabajo. Una vez al año tengo que ponerme a recitar el Diccionario, para garantizar que todas las palabras hagan el ejercicio imprescindible; pero en el transcurso del año procuro utilizar todas las que pueda, porque en realidad las pobrecillas no tienen suficiente con una sola salida anual. ¡Se aburren tanto, ahí sentaditas entre las páginas! "

― Gerald Durrell

143 " the bobbin of wool would rise and fall, twisting like a top, her fingers busy unravelling and plucking, and her drooping mouth with its hedge of broken and discoloured teeth wide open as she sang, loudly and harshly, but with great vigour. It was from Agathi that I learned some of the most beautiful and haunting of the peasant songs. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

144 " and the olive trunks steamed as the rain was dried off them by the sun, "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

145 " Eventually, having shoved enough down them to keep them more or less alive, I left them in their strawberry basket on the veranda "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

146 " Ensconced in the attic, she was producing somewhat lopsided and slippery pieces of sculpture out of an acrid-smelling yellow soap and appearing in a flowered smock and an artistic trance at mealtimes. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

147 " The family were arranged on the veranda under the grapevine, each occupied with his or her own affairs. Mother was knitting, counting the stitches audibly at intervals to herself and saying ‘damn’ periodically when she went wrong. Leslie was squatting on the flag-stones, carefully weighing gunpowder and little piles of silver shot as he filled shiny red cartridge cases. Larry was reading a massive tome and occasionally glancing irritably at Margo, who was clattering away at her machine, making some diaphanous garment, and singing, off key, the only line she knew of her favourite song of the moment.
‘She wore her little jacket of blue,’ she warbled. ‘She wore her little jacket of blue, She wore her little jacket of blue, She wore her little jacket of blue.’
‘The only remarkable thing about your singing is your tenacity,’ said Larry. ‘Anybody else, faced with the fact that they could not carry a tune and couldn’t remember the simplest lyric, would have given up, defeated, a long time ago.’
He threw his cigarette butt down on the flag-stones and this produced a roar of rage from Leslie.
‘Watch the gunpowder,’ he shouted.
‘Leslie dear,’ said Mother, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t shout like that, you’ve made me lose count.’
I produced my hedgehogs proudly and showed them to Mother "

― Gerald Durrell

148 " Mother, scarlet with heat, trotted frantically around the kitchen making scones, cakes, apple turnovers, and brandysnaps, stews, pies, jellies, and trifles. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

149 " That’s the trouble round here,’ snapped Larry. ‘Nobody counts! And before you know where you are you’re knee deep in animals. It’s like the bloody creation all over again, only worse. One owl turns into a battalion before you know where you are; sex-mad pigeons defying Marie Stopes in every room of the house; the place is so full of birds it’s like a bloody poulterer’s shop, to say nothing of snakes and toads and enough small fry to keep Macbeth’s witches in provender for years. And on top of all that you go and get twelve more dogs. It’s a perfect example of the streak of lunacy that runs in this family.’

‘Nonsense, Larry, you do exaggerate,’ said Mother. ‘Such a lot of fuss over a few puppies.’

‘You call eleven puppies a few? The place will look like the Greek branch of Crufts’ Dog Show and they’ll probably all turn out to be bitches and come into season simultaneously. Life will deteriorate into one long canine sexual orgy. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

150 " It was originally intended to be a mildly nostalgic account of the natural history of the island, "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

151 " The Magenpies, obviously suspecting Larry of being a dope smuggler, had fought valiantly with the time of bicarbonate of soda, and had scattered its contents along a line of books, so that they looked like a snow-covered mountain range. "

― Gerald Durrell , My Family and Other Animals (Corfu Trilogy, #1)

152 " Ignoranța familiei mele în ceea ce privește lumea în care trăiesc a constituit întotdeauna un motiv de îngrijorare pentru mine și n-am lăsat niciodată să-mi scape vreo ocazie de a le împărtăși cunoștințe. "

― Gerald Durrell , Birds, Beasts and Relatives (Corfu Trilogy #2)

153 " Typical of the medical profession,’ said Larry bitterly. ‘They can’t even spot a disease until the patient is twice life size. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

154 " fed under the orange and lemon trees, "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

155 " the glitter and wink of the trapped fish inside it. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

156 " It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

157 " have you heard about the young Hindu virgin from Kutch, who kept two tame snakes in her crutch, she said when they wriggle, it’s a bit of a giggle, but my boyfriends don’t like my crutch much. Ha ha ha!’ ‘Really, captain!’ said Mother, outraged, ‘I do wish you wouldn’t recite poetry in front of Gerry. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

158 " Treading water and peering down, we could see below the shining, narrow fronds of green and black weeds growing close and tangled, over which we hung like hawks suspended in air above a strange woodland. "

― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)

159 " I sighed rapturously. It was a wonderful story, and might well be true. Even it if wasn’t true, it was the sort of thing that should happen, "

― Gerald Durrell , My Family and Other Animals (Corfu Trilogy, #1)

160 " «Perchè? Perchè? Perchè se dormi, quando ti svegli sei cambiato. Sì, i cipressi neri sono pericolosi. Mentre dormi, le loro radici ti crescono nel cervello e te lo rubano, e quando ti svegli sei matto, con la testa vuota come uno zufolo». "

― Gerald Durrell