A SOUL-BOOK

'Now and again in a lifetime a friend introduces you to a writer and you discover a soul-book, a work that engraves itself on your heart: one you read over and over, falling in love with it more deeply each time.' 

Roger Deakin, Wildwood, p.268. 

GETTING TO KNOW THE NEIGHBOURS

'There is no more intimate way of getting to know your neighbours than teaching their children.' 

Roger Deakin, Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees, p.4.

TIME

'Here's how time works. When you're young, your mind is running really fast, like a camera over-cranked to produce a slow-motion film, so the days and weeks and summers seem incredibly long. When you grow old, the mind slows down, doesn't clock so much sensory stimuli, so the days and years flash by. The same of things happens in a day. Morning time seems longer because your mind is whirring. Evening times goes by faster, because you've slowed down - unless you're being stimulated by lively company at dinner.'

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, p.259.

THE POWER OF PLACE

'All of us, I believe, carry about in our heads places and landscapes we shall never forget because we experienced such intensity of life there: places where, like the child that "feels its life in every limb" in Wordsworth's poem 'We are Seven,' our eyes have opened wider, and all our senses have somehow heightened. By way of returning the compliment, we accord these places that have given us such joy a special place in our memories and imaginations. They live on in us, wherever we may be, however far way from them.' 

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, p.242. 

ENGLISH WEATHER

'Why would anyone want to go to live abroad when they can live in several countries at once just by being in England? Yesterday was hot, clammy and humid, with sunshine and dramatic cloud. I might have been in Singapore, fighting for breath. This morning, it is another country, soft and damp after rain, cool and breezy. Last night we were in monsoon India, and, according to the weather forecast, we shall be in the sunny South of France this weekend.' 

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, p.190. 

WHY WRITE?

'Why write? A writer needs a strong passion to change things, not just to reflect or report them as they are.' 

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, p.120. 

THE ANT & THE CHRISTIAN

'Cut off from it's tribe, it has lost all sense of itself. It is really a part of a body in search of the rest of the body, like the tail of a lizard left twitching upon amputation. An ant colony is really a single organism that is differentiated into various functions, chiefly feeding and breeding, so if one tiny component gets lost like this, if feels some imperative, some compulsion, to rejoin the rest of the the ant-body.' 

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm,  p.103. 

LIVING ALONE

'I need someone to fold the sheet; someone to take the other end of the sheet and walk towards me and fold once, then step back, fold and walk toward me again. We all need someone to fold the sheet. Someone to hitch on the coat at the neck. Someone to put on the kettle. Someone to dry up while I wash.' 

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, p.86. 

FRIENDS

'I want all my friends to come up like weeds, and I want to be a weed myself, spontaneous and unstoppable. I don't want the kind of friends one has to cultivate.' 

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, p.63. 

BOOKS & TREES

'Books are like seeds: they come to life when you read them and grow spines and leaves. I need trees around me as I need books around me, so building bookshelves is something like planting trees.'

Roger Deakin, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, p.24.