“The association of the wild and the wood also run deep in etymology. The two words are thought to have grown out… — Robert Macfarlane Old english Copy Share Image
“We are adept, if occasionally embarrassed, at saying what we make of places - but we are far less good at saying… — Robert Macfarlane Copy Share Image
Anyone who lives in a city will know the feeling of having been there too long. The gorge-vision that the streets imprint… — Robert Macfarlane Blockage Copy Share Image
“I had started climbing trees about three years earlier, or rather, re-started; for I had been at a school that had a… — Robert Macfarlane Climbing trees Copy Share Image
“The whole foot is a document of motion, inscribed by repeated action. Babies - from those first foetal footfalls, the kneading of… — Robert Macfarlane Exploring Copy Share Image
“My grandparents... planted their land up with trees, both those native... and exotics which stood in memory of the countries where they… — Robert Macfarlane Trees Copy Share Image
“Touch is a reciprocal action, a gesture of exchange with the world. To make an impression is also to receive one, and… — Robert Macfarlane Copy Share Image
Knowing another is endless,' Shepherd had written; 'The thing to be known grows with the knowing. — Robert Macfarlane Endless Copy Share Image
By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can… — Robert Macfarlane Confronting Copy Share Image
I remembered what Thoreau had written in his journal about thinking nothing of walking eight miles to greet a tree. — Robert Macfarlane Eight Copy Share Image
“...the instinct and the body (the felt smoothness of pebbles, the seen grain of light) must know in ways that the conscious… — Robert Macfarlane Conscious mind Copy Share Image
“meaning indifferent to the distinction between things. It is not, on the whole, that natural phenomena and entities themselves are disappearing; rather… — Robert Macfarlane Language Copy Share Image
“...he suggested that paths were imprinted with the 'dreams' of each traveler who had walked it and that his own experiences would… — Robert Macfarlane Dreams Copy Share Image
“Although the disappearance of the true wildwood [in the British Isles] occurred in the Neolithic period, before humanity began to record its… — Robert Macfarlane Nature Copy Share Image
“To be in the Burren is to be reminded that physical matter is simultaneously indestructible and entirely transmutable: that it can swap… — Robert Macfarlane Copy Share Image
“Has the water died?’ asks Will. He is only nine. It is painful for him to see this. He understands that there… — Robert Macfarlane Climate-crisis Copy Share Image
“It felt at that moment unarguable that a horizon line might exert as potent or pull upon the mind as a mountain's… — Robert Macfarlane Time Copy Share Image
“The miniature sandscapes of ridge and valley pressed into the soles of my feet and for days after the walk I would… — Robert Macfarlane Walking Copy Share Image
“In the right frame of mind, to walk from one room in a house to another can be exploration of the highest… — Robert Macfarlane Childhood Copy Share Image
“Reading kept him alive,’ she said, ‘right till the end.” — Robert Macfarlane Till the end Copy Share Image
“The best-known connection between footfall, knowledge and memory is the Aboriginal Australian vision of the Songlines. According to this cosmogony, the world… — Robert Macfarlane Dreams Copy Share Image
“Our disenchantment of the night through artificial lighting may appear, if it is noticed at all, as a regrettable but eventually trivial… — Robert Macfarlane Checks and balances Copy Share Image
“We don't come fresh to even the most inaccessible of landscapes. ... We carry expectations and to an extent make what we… — Robert MacFarlane Copy Share Image
