John Burnside Quotes

You don't know what mental telepathy exists from the human to the animal.

Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem.

There are a lot of obstacles in the way of our understanding animal intelligence - not the least being that we can't even agree whether nonhuman species are conscious. We accept that chimps and dolphins experience awareness; we like to think dogs and cats do. But what about mice and newts? What about a fly? Is anything going on there at all?

The dog is almost human in its demand for living interest, yet fatally less than human in its inability to foresee.

When the dog looks at you, the dog is not thinking what kind of a person you are. The dog is not judging you.

I'm always struck by how innately curious kids are about the world around us and how engaged and sensitive they are to what is happening .. and how many kids do want to be engaged and do what to make a difference.

There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, and claims the fellowship of the creature if not of the soul.

He put his cold hands on either side of my face and fixed his golden eyes on mine. "Would you please tell me what you're thinking? Before I go mad?

Sometimes the gift of an inquisitive nature to the young can be greater than that of the wisdom which comes of age.

I want to talk to him. I want to ask him about that girl and if he loved her and still misses her. Nothing, however, exits my mouth. How well do we really let ourselves know each other? There's a long quietness until I finally break it open. It reminds me of someone breaking bread and handing it out. In my case, I hand out a question to my friend.

You really, really have to care about animals to want to kill one. You have to learn all this stuff about them and start thinking like them.

Animals have always left me with a curiosity about human nature. I trust animals more than most people.

You have never been curious about me; you never wanted to explore my soul.

I was always empathetic with animals. It's a terrible and self-involved point of view that we do something because someone else is exploitable.

My own eyes are not enough for me...I will see through the eyes of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many is not enough...I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee. More gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog.

So what’s wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?

In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.

Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way." ... "Surely a better time must be drawing nigh when godlike human beings will become truly humane, and learn to put their animal fellow mortals in their hearts instead of on their backs or in their dinners.

We're wired to be empathetic and to care about the needs of others, but also to be curious about others. And I think that's just sort of in our DNA. And so portraiture is a very human act.

We relate to Leonardo da Vinci because his genius was just being passionately curious about everything. He wanted to know everything he could know about our universe, including how we fit into it. We can't all have a superhuman intellect like Albert Einstein's, but we can be super-curious. And we can also quit smashing curiosity out of the hands our children.

A mother knows what her child's gone through, even if she didn't see it herself.

You always fed strays and bent down to talk to the dogs you met on the street, looking straight into their eyes as if they were old friends. (Maybe they are, you said. From another life.) You liked to go to the pound and look at them. You tried to send them messages of comfort. I couldn’t go because I started crying the one time I tried. All those eyes and the barks like sobs.

The higher animals are in a sense drawn into Man when he loves them and makes them (as he does) much more nearly human than they would otherwise be.

I have always felt that the way we treat animals is a pretty good indicator of the compassion we are capable of for the human race.

When someone refuses to tell me a certain piece of information, it only makes me that much more determined to find out the truth. I hate being ignorant. For me, a question unanswered is like a thorn in my side