Quotes by James Herriot

“I am never at my best in the early morning, especially a cold morning in the Yorkshire spring with a piercing March wind sweeping down from the fells, finding its way inside my clothing, nipping at my nose and ears.”

If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.

And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly

My mind went back to that picture in the obstetrics book. A cow standing in the middle of a gleaming floor while a sleek veterinary surgeon in a spotless parturition overall inserted his arm to a polite distance. He was relaxed and smiling, the farmer and his helpers were smiling, even the cow was smiling. There was no dirt or blood or sweat anywhere.That man in the picture had just finished an excellent lunch and had moved next door to do a bit of calving just for the sheer pleasure of it, as a kind of dessert. He hadnt crawled shivering from his bed at two oclock in the morning and bumped over twelve miles of frozen snow, staring sleepily ahead till the lonely farm showed in the headlights. He hadnt climbed half a mile of white fell-side to the doorless barn where his patient lay.

I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.

Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.

I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.

I wish people would realize that animals are totally dependent on us, helpless, like children, a trust that is put upon us.

For years I used to bore my wife over lunch with stories about funny incidents.

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”