John Burnside

“Irrationality interests me more than anything: sometimes it's very dangerous, but it can be incredibly beautiful.”

“I know that the only reason American landscapes sometimes disappoint me is that, just a century before I was born, the great rivers and prairies and wild forests still existed. And they were...”

“I don't want to suggest that matrimony was necessarily a tragic affair - some of our neighbours' marriages seemed quite functional, if somewhat routine; nevertheless, in the workaday world,...”

“I don't like the term 'mental illness.' I'd rather just say 'mad.' Just like I always say 'loony bin,' not 'mental hospital.'”

“It may be a cliche, but cliche or not, I fear the day when the only marsh harriers or peregrines I can look at are in paintings by Joseph Wolf or Bruno Liljefors - and no matter how beautifu...”

“High Alpine meadows, like their near relatives prairie, desert and certain varieties of wetland, teach us to consider the world from a fresh perspective, to open our eyes and take account of...”

“We do not need to be heroes to save the world; all we need is humility, a critical view of the commercial and political interests of those who would mislead us into wrongdoing, and a sense o...”

“For 10 years, I gave away my possessions every year and moved on to a new place.”

“I always wanted to be a painter. I loved painting. I went on three different art courses but had no talent whatsoever.”

“A forest - the word dates back to the Norman occupancy, when it meant an area set aside for England's violent new masters to hunt boar and deer - is necessarily larger than a wood. It belong...”

“All my life, I have been a celebrant of Halloween. For me, it is the most important day of the year, the turning point in the old pagan calendar.”

“Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.”

“I really like to try my hand at everything, and I think it's probably dangerous to let oneself be pigeon-holed, not necessarily by other people, but in one's own mind.”

“It's important to have quiet time and isolation.”

“My editor, Robin Robertson, is one of this country's finest poets, so I listen to him when he offers advice.”

“I remember playing the Mad Hatter in a school play and feeling very comfortable in the character.”

“Our ancestors went to the woods to find fuel; they set snares there for birds and gathered nuts and fungi.”

“For a boy of ten, used to the coal bings and rust-coloured burns of Cowdenbeath, the fields and woodland of Kingswood, with its overgrown but stately avenue of copper-barked sequoias, felt l...”

“The only pleasure in redecorating or moving house comes from stumbling across books that I'd almost forgotten I owned.”

“What the flamingo teaches a child, at that subliminal level where animal encounters work, is that gravity is not just a limitation, but also a possible partner in an intriguing, potentially...”