“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered:
“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”
“This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
“How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.”
New kids always laughed about that till they got a look at the cat. It was the meanest looking animal I ever saw. It had one short leg and a broken tail and one missing eye, and the mailman wouldn’t deliver anything to the Herdmans because of it.
“There warn’t anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn’t any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it’s cool. If you notice, most folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to: but a hog is different.”
“Never take the life of any animal needlessly. A live monkey up in that tree is of more use to us than a dozen dead ones at our feet, as I will show you.”
“I gathered a handful of small stones, and threw them up toward the apes. The stones did not go near them, but influenced by their instinctive mania for imitation, they instantly seized all the cocoanuts within their reach, and sent a perfect hail of them down upon us.”
″‘Well,’ said I, ‘let the little orphan be yours. You bravely and kindly exerted yourself to save the mother’s life; now you must train her child carefully, for unless you do so its natural instinct will prove mischievous instead of useful to us.‘”
“She was amazed that it would come so close, but she remembered that this was a national park. All the animals in the park would know that they are protected.”
“One of them was brown all over, but the other had strange markings under his fur, as though long ago he had been spotted, and the spots still showed through. And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself:
‘Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!’
But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.”
“The lion and the giraffe and the wombat and the rest do what they do and are what they are. And somehow manage to make it there in the cage, living the unexamined life. But to be human is to know and care and ask. To keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence hollering, ‘What’s it for?’ at the stones and stars, and making prisons and palaces out of the echoing answers. That’s what we do and that’s what we are. And that’s why a zoo is a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
“Why don’t they cut their own children’s ears into points to make them look sharp? Why don’t they cut the end off their noses to make them look plucky? One would be just as sensible as the other. What right have they to torment and disfigure God’s creatures?”
“God had given men reason, by which they could find out things for themselves; but he had given animals knowledge which did not depend on reason, and which was much more prompt and perfect in its way, and by which they had often saved the lives of men.”
“He believed with complete conviction that no animal was permanently ruined. Every horse could be improved. He lived by a single maxim: ‘Learn your horse. Each one is an individual, and once you penetrate his mind and heart, you can often work wonders with an otherwise intractable beast.‘”
“I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals” (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.”
“Nearby another one arose and there was a pop. Little bubbles of air snapped as these voiceless animals of the earth came to the surface. That got me to smiling. I was glad to know this about earthworms. I don’t know why but this seemed like one of the nicest things I had learned in the woods - that earthworms, lowly, confined to the darkness of the earth, could make just a little stir in the world”
“You mustn’t be afraid of him. He is our brother Daniel come home. When he milks you, you must be good and stand still. See how big and strong he is. He will take care of us and keep us safe.”
“See that falcon? Hear those white-throated sparrows? Smell that skunk? Well, the falcon takes the sky, the white-throated sparrow takes the low bushes, the skunk takes the earth...I take the woods.”
“They seemed amazingly busy. I began to ask myself what they could be. Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing I felt was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man’s brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam-engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal.”
“And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races.”
“And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling, and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that generation after generation creeps upon them”
“One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.”
“The bodies of irrational animals are bent toward the ground, whereas man was made to walk erect with his eyes on heaven, as though to remind him to keep his thoughts on things above.”
“The creature was utterly strange, not like anything they had ever known, and yet when it looked at them, some kind of recognition passed between them. ‘I know now,’ said Doon. ‘This is the world we belong in.‘”
“The Flying Spaghetti Monster made the platypus because, unlike scientists, He has a sense of humor. It’s an unlikely sign from God--and until someone can prove me wrong, that’s my theory.”
“Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire.”
“It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English – up to fifty words used in correct context – no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.”
“Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.”
“Always pitiful when any human being falls into a condition hardly more respectable than that of an animal. How much more pitiful it is when the person who falls has had all the advantages!”
“I was happy to be home. Everything that I saw- the otter playing in the kelp, the rings of foam around the rocks that guarded the harbor, the gulls flying, the tides moving past the sandspit – filled me with happiness.
I was surprised that I felt this way, for it was only a short time ago that I had stood on this same rock and felt that I could not bear to live here another day.”
“He knew you could never teach an animal anything if you struck it, or even shouted at it angrily. He must always be gentle, and quiet, and patient, even when they made mistakes.”
“If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the others had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”
The Silk family are large and attuned to each other and the world around them. They live on the fringe a little, love to dress up, embrace imagination and surround themselves with animals and love. Narrated by 8 yr old Griffin this sad, but celebratory, tale is an exceptional read.
″‘This is interesting-very interesting-something quite new. Give me the Bird’s A.B.C first-slowly now.’ So that was the way the Doctor came to know that animals had a language of their own and could talk to one another.”
“He was very fond of animals and kept many kinds of pets. Besides the gold-fish in the pond at the bottom of his garden, he had rabbits in the pantry, white mice in his piano, a squirrel in the linen closet and a hedgehog in the cellar.”
“John, how can you expect sick people to come and see you when you keep all these animals in the house? It’s a fine doctor would have his parlor full of hedgehogs and mice!”
″‘...animals don’t always speak with their mouths,’ said the parrot in a high voice, raising her eyebrows. ‘They talk with their ears, with their feet, with their tails- with everything.‘”
“Then John Dolittle got a fine, big pair of green spectacles; and the plow-horse stopped going blind in one eye and could see as well as ever. And soon it became a common sight to see farm-animals wearing glasses in the country round Puddleby; and a blind horse was a thing unknown.”
″‘I felt sure there was twopence left,’ said the Doctor.
‘There was,’ said the owl. ‘But you spent it on a rattle for that badger’s baby when he was teething.‘”
″‘Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed--No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes--hundreds of ‘em--cubs; and--’
‘Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Why, of course!’ said Jip.”
It is a story about family, pets, animals, the sea and its numerous creatures, an island nestling a forest and its mysterious beings; an old man in his world building it to a kingdom of his own along with the orangutans and the gibbons; men and animals living together; separations and wars.
“So Amos said goodnight to the elephant. And goodnight to the tortoise. And goodnight to the penguin. And goodnight to the rhinoceros. And goodnight to the owl, who- knowing that Amos was afraid of the dark- read a story aloud before turning out the light.”
“He would play chess with the elephant (who though an though before make a move), run races with the tortoise (who never ever lost), sit quietly with the penguin (who was very shy), lend a handkerchief to the rhinoceros (who always had a runny nose), and, at sunset, read stories to the owl (who was afraid of the dark). ”
“Of course Brer Fox wanted to hurt Brer Rabbit as much as he could, so he caught by the hind-legs and slug him right in the middle of the brier-patch. There was a considerable flutter where Brer Rabbit struck the bushes, and Brer Fox hung around so as to see what would happen.”
“Can I be of help?′ Big Cat asked. ‘I want to see the world.’ Little Fish said. ‘The world is beautiful here, really beautiful,’ Big Cat said. ‘The flowers... the trees... the ocean just over the hill.”
“Toad found some rope in the cellar. ‘I will pull Frog out of the hole with this,’ said Toad. Toad found a lantern in the attic. ‘Frog will see this light. I will show him the way out of the woods,’ said Toad. Toad found a frying pan in the kitchen. ‘I will hit that big animal with this,’ said Toad. ‘All of his teeth with fall out. Frog, do not worry,’ cried Toad. ‘I am coming to help you!’ “
“Everything and anything in life was bearable as long as she had this. What did it matter if she had to wear that absurd uniform and go to that snooty school. At the weekends she could be a squirrel, or a cat, or rabbit, or lolloping wolfhound or busy, rat-hunting terrier.”
“Tess gave herself over completely to the game and the joy of companionship. It happened occasionally that she met a friend of a sort in the animal world, but as with human friends, it always seemed to be hard work. This was different. The chipmunk was as eager for company as she was.”
“The old Eskimos were scientists too. By using the plants, animals, and temperature, they had changed the harsh Arctic into a home, a feat as incredible as sending rockets to the moon. […] They had been wise. They had adjusted to nature instead of to man-made gadgets.”
“Better way to get a rough-haired terrier is to find out the name of some breeder of wire haired fox terriers -as one variety of rough-haired terrier is called in the dog world _and write, or see him at a show, when you can ask him if he has a puppy for sale.”
“And while she’s honing her talents, she’s also getting ready to move on to the bigger, brighter world she can see through the tiny hole in the hen house wall.”
“Tomorrow is my birthday, Andy. I’ll be another year older, and no one is around to celebrate. I miss my sister, Nedna; my brother, Nedrick; and my mother -we just call her Ma. Well, I’m glad you’re here. Good night.”
“Whether Henrietta achieves her dreams is left open, but through her persistence and her resolute belief in herself, she does manage to change the lives of everyone in the hen house for the better.”
“Finally Mr. Tod builds the greatest trap in history, and discovers his best idea yet, with a help from Mrs. Tod. This headstrong inventor fox and his doting family will charm beginning readers.”
“Weasel was there already. ′ It’s so cold here.′ moaned Mr. Tod. ‘I keep warm by chasing rabbits,’ Weasel told him. Mr. Tod smirked. ‘I use clever ideas to catch rabbits,’ Mr. Tod said.”
““Refusing to follow the boring herd mentality of her grazing companions, a visionary little sheep uses her imagination to achieve the impossible…The unflappable Mathilda will tickle and inspire.”
“Good evening,′ said Andy. ‘And would you have such as thing as a birthday cake about? I need one for my friend Cowboy Ned so he can have a cake on his birthday.”
“A favorite joke inspires this charming tale, in which a little chicken’s habit of interrupting bedtime stories is gleefully turned on its head. It’s time for ...”
“Suddenly Percy hears a knock again. “Who can be at this time of night?” Percy goes to the door and looks out. There are two little rabbits..“It’s too cold outside, we are frozen. May we come in?. Percy replies: “Never mind, my bed is big” and the rabbits go into Percy’s bed. They’re warm now.”
“Poor Percy! And poor Percy’s bed! “My bed is too small for all these animals!” then, bump! The cover roll right off the bed and everybody falls onto the floor.”
“This roguish hero tells the story of a rather eventful day in his life in his own voice-captivating old and young alike with his wit and ability to get away ...”
“Come_read about these mighty creatures: some are silly, some are mild, some are gentle, some are wild. Come_ read about these beasts of yore in this wondrous world of Dinosaur.”
“Hamsters are the nicest things that anyone could own. I like them even better than some dogs that I have known. Their fur is soft, their faces nice. They’re small when they are grown. And they sit inside your pocket when you are all alone.”
“Wombat loves everything about Christmas--especially the Nativity play. He’s wanted to be in it for as long as he can remember. At last he’s old enough to ...”
“The animals are so surprised that they remain silent. Readers hope that in the future, Hattie’s words will be given more importance by the barnyard animals.”
“Doctor De Soto, the dentist, did very good work, so he had no end of patients. Those close to his own size – moles, chipmunks, et cetera – sat in the regular dentist’s chair.
Larger animals sat on the floor while Doctor De Soto stood on a ladder.”
“Doctor De Soto was especially popular with the big animals. He was able to work inside their mouths, wearing rubbers to keep his feet dry, and his fingers were so delicate, and his drill so dainty, they could hardly feel any pain.”
‘Grrr!’ growl the cats. ‘Eeek!’ squeak the mice. So it goes in the battle between cat and mouse. But when feline crime hits Tokyo, an unlikely hero strikes back.”
“He’s not so good at that yet,′ said Noah. At Sammys house, Sammy said, ‘Noah, meet my budgie, Sweetie.’ ‘Hello, Sweetie,’ said Noah. ‘Sweetie likes you,’ said Sammy. ‘How can you tell?’ asked Noah.”
“He can give me his paw,′ said Noah. ‘Happy _paw!’ Happy gave Noah his paw. ‘Happy_roll over!’ said Noah. Happy lay on his back, but he didn’t roll over.”
“Amazingly, every animal who meets Spider implicitly trusts the young boy. This magical rapport is Spider’s unique gift, but nothing else in his tough life is so easy.”
The book focused on animals, follows the boy Spider, abandoned at birth, and different through life. His gift for befriending animals brings him joy & value in his small farming community. We get a glimpse of life in the English countryside during World War II.
“That night, when all the animals were tucked in bed, Bramwell thought about the day’s adventures and looked at the others. Rabbit was dreaming exciting dreams about bouncing as high as an airplane. Duck was dreaming that he could really fly and was rescuing bears from all sorts of high places. Little Bear was dreaming of all the interesting things he had seen in the attic, and Old Bear was dreaming about the good times he would have now that he was back with his friends. ‘I knew it was going to be a special day,’ said Bramwell Brown to himself...”
“I was an animal to them, a pack mule. But beasts were never treated so poorly. Working animals were expensive. They had value. I was a Jew. We were lower than animals.”
″‘What’s that noise?’ said Mrs Hogger, sticking her comfortable round red face out of the kitchen window. ‘Listen, there ‘tis again, did you hear it, what a racket, what a row, anybody’d think someone was being murdered, oh dearie me, whatever is it, just listen to it, will?‘”
″ On the other hand, she didn’t like animals, had never liked animals, and never would like animals. It was bad luck that the three children had not taken after her in this. There were like their father, who had died soon after Amy was born. No doubt, if he had lived, the house would have swarmed with cats, dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, hamsters, budgerigars, and canaries in yellow clouds.”
“Remember? People aren’t the apex species they think they are. Other creatures—bigger, smaller, slower, faster, older, younger, more powerful—call the shots, make the air, and eat sunlight. Without them, nothing.”
“Now it was Mother Owl who woke the sun each day so that the dawn could come. But this time, when she should have hooted for the sun, she did not do it. The night grew longer and longer. The animals of the forest knew it was lasting much too long. They feared that the sun would never come back.”
“It can be hard even if you’re really big. But you can know a little bit anyway. For example, all plants, animals and human have to die in the end. It’s important to make room on the earth for the new ones that are born and starting to grow.”
“Everything which she has about her is of gold - tables, chairs, dishes, glasses, bowls, and household furniture. Among your treasures are five tons of gold; let one of the goldsmiths fo the kingdom fashion these into all manner of vessels and utensils, into all kinds of birds, wild beasts and strange animals, such as may please her, and we will go there with them and try our luck.”
“Mildred had three bats in her room, little furry ones which were very friendly. She was fond of animals and was looking forward to the next day when she would have a kitten of her own.”
“When we buried the dog in the garden on the grave we put a cross and the tall man next door was cross. ‘Animals have no soul, he said. ‘They must have animal souls,’ we said.”
From nonsense poems like ‘Quack’ Said the Billy Goat, in which all the animals make the wrong sounds, to poignant selections such as Riley, in which an elderly homeless man, known for living happily by himself in the wild, disappears one day, the selections here are all interesting
“There’s a responsibility we have toward animals. We use them. We shut them up, keep their natural food and water away from them; that means we have to feed and water them. Take away their freedom away, rope them, harness them, that means we have to supply a different sort of safety for them. Once I’ve put a rope on a horse, or taken away its ability to take care of itself, then I’ve got to take care of it.”
“The pig Johnny was very smart and acted like a dog. As the pig got older, he was not as active, and like older pets, he just hung around eating and sleeping.”
“For this poor family who owed many bills, the animal was a luxury that they couldn’t afford. Emily comes home from school one day and Johnny is not there. ”
“Mistress Fox was regarded in the village as a ‘great beauty.’ Master Wolf was not the only gentleman to think of presenting himself as a suitable mate - but he was the first to do so.”
“The moon was now shining brightly and all the bush was hushed, except for the sound of those little animals who are always busy at night-time. Angelina sniffed the night air with delight and felt very happy as she thought of the baby in her pouch.”
“Meet the deliciously zany Callendars _a British family of eight (not counting the animals) whose offbeat interest land them all in the astonishing middle of an international political crisis.”
“He leaves the Amazon expedition in the capable hands of Hal, who, although only just ready for the university, has hunted mountains lions and knows a lot about the way of animals.
“There were so many rats, in fact, that even the cats had run away. Rats dwelled in the cellars, in the kitchens, the bedrooms, and even the attics. The people of Hamelin could not live with so many rats.”
“The Pony Club’s chairman, Peter Beaumarchais, has surprisingly opted for a fancy-dress carnival as their Anniversary Day celebration in mid-September. Caroline decides to go as Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat.”
“My son Tod has gone to sea and I can’t do all the work alone. The stables let in the rain, so the animals have moved into my house. I’d like to sell the farm.”
“The hens roosted on the plate-rack and the ducks enjoyed themselves in the sink. Vulcan, the horse, made a disgusting noise munching the thatched roof of the dairy.”
“The result is animals from the circus are wandering around the train tracks. Fortunately nobody is hurt but the animals need rounding up so the Bobbseys keep out of the way until that is sorted out.”
“The Mallards finally decide on an island in the Charles River. From this island, the Mallards visit a policeman named Michael on the shore, who feeds them peanuts every day.”
“Specimens were what Jerry was interested in, not birds that fly away before one can be sure what they are but specimens of rock that may be scrutinized at leisure in one’s room by lamplight, late.”
“Once last winter, after a terrible and unusual snowstorm, Miranda had chased sixteen dogs off their street. They were trotting along happily through the deep and snowy ravine in the middle of the street where men and animals had worn a path.”
“One day the squirrel Lesp called his wife and children together and said: ‘We are going to move to a new home.’ ‘Where to, Father Lesp?’ they asked. ‘To the other side of the plain,’ Lesp said. ‘The trees are better over there.”
“Their home was not always as tidy as it might have been. Some things they did well, and others not so well. And sometimes there was rather a mess. One day they noticed that the cottage floor was very dirty.”
“Goodness me!′ cried Puss. ‘Whatever’s happened to you, Pup? You must be il. There’s foam dripping from your mouth. Whatever is the matter?’ ‘Well,’ said Pup., ‘I found something lying on the table. I though it might be some cheese, or a piece of cake, so I ate it.”
“Squirrels are scatty, thoughtless creatures add sometimes they forgot what game they were playing and then the children could catch them. Mostly, they were kind-hearted and often they remembered to bring Harriet a nut or two from their store.”