Watership Down is a 1972 adventure novel written by Richard Adams.
The story revolves on a small community of wild rabbits in Hampshire, England, who are struggling to live and find a new home.
Here are some of the best quotes from Watership Down novel by Richard Adams.
Watership Down Quotes by Richard Adams
“The truth is, you’re just a silly show-off.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“There’s terrible evil in the world.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running.” ~ Richard Adams (quote from Watership Down).
“Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“If you want to bless me you can bless my bottom, for it is sticking out of the hole.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Men will never rest till they’ve spoiled the earth and destroyed the animals.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“We go by the will of the black rabbit. when he calls you, you have to go.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
Other Popular Book Quotes: We Were Liars Quotes by E. Lockhart and To Kill a Mockingbird Quotes by Harper Lee
Quotes from Watership Down
“Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“There is not a day or night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit’s. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here, what is, is what must be.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“For that matter, Odysseus himself might have borrowed a trick or two from the rabbit hero, for he is very old and was never at a loss for a trick to deceive his enemies.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“A wild animal that feels that it no longer has any reason to live reaches in the end a point when its remaining energies may actually be directed toward dying.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“We could put Fiver and Pipkin on it and make it float again. It might go across the river. Can you understand?” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Like the pain of a bad wound, the effect of a deep shock takes some while to be felt. When a child is told, for the first time in his life, that a person he has known is dead, although he does not disbelieve it, he may well fail to comprehend it and later ask – perhaps more than once – where the dead person is and when he is coming back.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
Best Quotes from Watership Down
“There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to some strange and marvelous place where no one even stops to notice that you stare about you.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“They’d altered what rabbits do naturally because they thought they could do better.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like dew on a July morning. It does not reveal but changes what it covers.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Lots of little Bigwigs, Hazel! Think of that, and tremble!” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“The primroses were over.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Come back, you fools! Dogs aren’t dangerous! Come back and fight!” ~ Woundwort, Richard Adams, ‘Watership Down’.
“You’re trying to eat grass that isn’t there. Why don’t you give it a chance to grow?” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
Famous Watership Down Quotes
“Rabbits need dignity and above all the will to accept their fate.”~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“A rabbit sneeze on the morning breeze sets homesick hearts aglow sitting with his rumps in a chicory clump and longing for a nice plump doe.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Rabbits live close to death and when death comes closer than usual, thinking about survival leaves little room for anything else.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“A foraging wild creature, intent above all upon survival, is as strong as the grass.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Rabbits need dignity and, above all, the will to accept their fate.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“We all have to meet our match sometime or other.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“To come to the end of a time of anxiety and fear! To feel the cloud that hung over us lift and disperse—the cloud that dulled the heart and made happiness no more than a memory! This at least is one joy that must have been known by almost every living creature.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
Top Watership Down Quotes by Richard Adams
“A magpie, seeing some light-colored object conspicuous on the empty slope, flew closer to look. but all that lay there was a splintered peg and a twisted length of wire.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Human beings say, “It never rains but it pours.” This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits’ proverb is better expressed. They say, “One cloud feels lonely”: and indeed it is true that the sky will soon be overcast.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Why do the men come, do you suppose?” “Who knows why men do anything?” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.” ~ Richard Adams, Watership Down.
“That wasn’t why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“They’re all so much afraid of the Council that they’re not afraid of anything else.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Underground, the story continued.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“You know how you let yourself think that everything will be all right if you can only get to a certain place or do a certain thing. But when you get there you find it’s not that simple.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“They want to be natural, the anti-social little beasts. They just don’t realize that everyone’s good depends on everyone’s cooperation.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“Rabbit underground, rabbit safe and sound.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“My Chief Rabbit has told me to stay and defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here. – Bigwig” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“I am sorry for you with all my heart. But you cannot blame us, for you came to kill us if you could.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.” ~ Richard Adams (Watership Down).
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