“White, caught up in this conservative, antiquarian mood, walked with his hawk and wrote of ghosts, of starry Orion naked and resplendent in the English sky, of all the imaginary lines men and time had drawn upon the landscape. By… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“And I was sure it was the drink that irrigated White’s self-sabotage, for it is the common trait of alcoholics to make plans and… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“White called Prisonface to life in order that he should suffer, be punished, mocked, reduced to rags and die.” — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realise,… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“And when I look again she seems neither bird nor reptile, but a creature shaped by a million years of evolution for a life… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“Riding out with the Old Surrey and Burstow Hunt, White recorded the first time he saw a kill with distanced fascination. The fox was… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“He did all the right things: flew aeroplanes, shot, fished for salmon, hunted; and even better, all the wrong things: kept grass snakes in… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“I couldn't keep the dimensions of my car in my head. Or my own, for I kept having accidents. I cracked cups. I dropped… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“He was a complicated man, and an unhappy one. But he knew also that the world was full of simple miracles.” — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“It wasn't just that I saw in his book, reflected backwards and dimly, my own retreat into wildness. It was this: of all the… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
“and it was there, standing on the edge of a village playing field, that I gratefully stepped into novicehood again, as if I had… — Helen Macdonald Copy Share Image
