All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1)

by James Herriot

I grinned. This was the bit I liked. The little miracle. I felt it was something that would never grow stale no matter how often I saw it.

It’s a funny profession, ours, you know. It offers unparalleled opportunities for making a chump of yourself.”

Animals are unpredictable things so our whole life is unpredictable. It’s a long tale of little triumphs and disasters and you’ve got to really like it to stick

Life was full for me. There were so many things to find out and a lot I had to prove to myself.

I was beginning to learn about the farmers and what I found I liked. They had a toughness and a philosophical attitude which was new to me. Misfortunes which would make the city dweller want to bang his head against a wall were shrugged off with “Aye, well, these things happen.”

“If you decide to become a veterinary surgeon you will never grow rich but you will have a life of endless interest and variety.”

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. You’ve nothing to worry about there.”

Mr. Dumbleby was a grunter. (This expression had its origin in an occasion when Siegfried and a farmer had a foot apiece at a calving and the farmer was making pitiful sounds without exerting himself in the slightest. Siegfried had turned to him and said: “Look, let’s come to an arrangement—you do the pulling and I’ll do the grunting.”)