Richard Smyth > Quotes

“When we’re children we grow up not just within homes, not just within families and communities, but within ecologies, too — encircled by clouds of birds, sharing the air with insects and pollen, our paths crisscrossing those of hedgehogs and mice; our lives are shaped and tempered by these living worlds, these embracing atmospheres into which each of us is born.”
― Richard Smyth, An Indifference of Birds

“We’ve made monsters we don’t know how to fight.”
― Richard Smyth, An Indifference of Birds

“Birds change, we change, the world changes.”
― Richard Smyth, An Indifference of Birds

“whispers are often thunderous”
― Richard Smyth, Wild Ink

“No human ever lived in a birdless world.”
― Richard Smyth, An Indifference of Birds

“Nature is about now. ‘Natural’ means us, too, if it means anything.”
― Richard Smyth, An Indifference of Birds

“I think a bird’s being extends beyond entertaining, wit, its outstretched wingtips: its identity is knotted up in its habitat, in the world that has shaped it, and continues to shape it.”
― Richard Smyth, An Indifference of Birds

“Perhaps it's impolite to die so flippantly, after all she's done for me.”
― Richard Smyth, Wild Ink

“Our worlds, the little worlds of all living things, are enmeshed beyond all entangling. And yet we’re not all one, the birds, us, the insects, worms, flowers, the rest, not exactly; we’re walled up within our own experiences, our own capacities. We share a physical world but our sensory and mental worlds remain discrete, entire, complete.”
― Richard Smyth, An Indifference of Birds

“There are too many years around this table, too much time confined in one place.”
― Richard Smyth, Wild Ink

“My pains, sometimes seem like witch hunters: confess, confess, confess. Like a heavy stone on my rib-cage.
Confess to what?
And, of course, I would confess, if only I knew what it was they wanted to hear.”
― Richard Smyth, Wild Ink

“I was well-read but perhaps that only made me stupid.”
― Richard Smyth, Wild Ink

“You hear about ghosts: sad ghosts, angry ghosts.I'll tell you, the worst is when they laugh, and the worst sort are the ones whose faces I've forgotten.”
― Richard Smyth, Wild Ink

“Is the undertaker joyous when his turn comes around? All those years holding the door open. To pass through - does it feel like a privileged?”
― Richard Smyth, Wild Ink