Gerald Durrell

Right in the Heart of the African Jungle a small white man lives. Now there is one extraordinary fact about him that he is the frind of all animals.

— Gerald Durrell

There is no first world and third world. There is only one world, for all of us to live and delight in.

— Gerald Durrell

If naturalists go to heaven (about which there is considerable ecclesiastical doubt), I hope that I will be furnished with a troop of kakapo to amuse me in the evening instead of television.

— Gerald Durrell

Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen. Each day had a tranquillity, a timelessness, about it so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us, glossy and colourful as a child's transfer and with the same tinge of unreality.

— Gerald Durrell

I said I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant.

— Gerald Durrell

An immensely tall, angular figure … His gown hung round him in long folds like the wings of a bat, and his wig was perched slightly askew over a lantern jawed face with a blue chin, soulful spaniel-brown eyes and a turned-down mouth like a slit. But for his garb, you would have said that he was a dyspeptic undertaker in a town where nobody ever died.

— Gerald Durrell

His pen squeaking like a demented wren as he wrote copious notes.

— Gerald Durrell

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present the famous escape artists, Krafty Kralefsky and his partner, Slithery Stephanides." "Dear God," said Larry, "who thought of those names?" "Theodore" "They wanted to call it something much more....complex, but Margo couldn't be trusted to pronounce them properly" "One must be thankful for small mercies

— Gerald Durrell

Air! Air!" croaked Kralefsky, "Give me air!" "Fan him! Blow on him!" shrilled Margo, and burst into tears. "He’s dying, he’s dying, and he never finished his trick.

— Gerald Durrell

To say that Gannet City was busy would be an understatement. New York in the rush-hour would appear immobile in comparison. There were gannets incubating, feeding chicks, flirting, mating, preening and launching themselves into the air in effortless flight on their six-foot wings. With their creamy- white bodies, wing-tips black as jet and their orange-coloured nape and head they were impressive and immensely handsome.

— Gerald Durrell