Top 90 James Herriot Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— James Herriot

2. “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”

— James Herriot

Featured in: Loyalty Quotes

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

— James Herriot

4. “A farmer once told me one of the greatest luxuries of his life was to wake up early only to go back to sleep again.”

— James Herriot

5. “Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.”

— James Herriot

6. “I wish people would realize that animals are totally dependent on us, helpless, like children, a trust that is put upon us.”

— James Herriot

7. “No animal is a better judge of comfort than a cat...”

— James Herriot

8. “I have felt cats rubbing their faces against mine and touching my cheek with claws carefully sheathed. These things, to me, are expressions of love.”

— James Herriot

9. “This old man had once told me that he left school when he was twelve, whereas I had spent most of the twenty-four years in my life in study. Yet when I looked back on the last hour or so I could come to only one conclusion. I’d had more of books, but he had more of learning.”

— James Herriot

10. “And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly.”

— James Herriot

11. “That quotation about not having time to stand and stare has never applied to me. I seem to have spent a good part of my life – probably too much – in just standing and staring and I was at it again this morning.”

— James Herriot

12. “I love writing about my job because I loved it, and it was a particularly interesting one when I was a young man. It was like holidays with pay to me.”

— James Herriot

13. “It was to a moribund horse, and Mr. Sidlow, describing the treatment to date, announced that he had been pushing raw onions up the horse’s rectum; he couldn’t understand why it was so uneasy on its legs. Siegfried had pointed out that if he were to insert a raw onion in Mr. Sidlow’s rectum, he, Mr. Sidlow, would undoubtedly be uneasy on his legs.”

— James Herriot

14. “I was helped by having a verbatim memory of what happened years ago, even if I can’t remember what happened a couple of days ago.”

— James Herriot

15. “I could do terrible things to people who dump unwanted animals by the roadside.”

— James Herriot

16. “I hope to make people realize how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must that we will be kind and take care of their needs.”

— James Herriot

17. “I am never at my best in the early morning, especially a cold morning in the Yorkshire spring with a piercing March wind sweeping down from the fells, finding its way inside my clothing, nipping at my nose and ears.”

— James Herriot

18. “They can’t find my house now because I keep it very quiet where I live.”

— James Herriot

19. “And I could find other excuses to get out and sit on the crisp grass and look out over the airy roof of Yorkshire. It was like taking time out of life. Time to get things into perspective and assess my progress.”

— James Herriot

20. “There was no last animal I treated. When young farm lads started to help me over the gate into a field or a pigpen, to make sure the old fellow wouldn’t fall, I started to consider retiring.”

— James Herriot

21. “Dogs like to obey. It gives them security.”

— James Herriot

22. “At times it seemed unfair that I should be paid for my work; for driving out in the early morning with the fields glittering under the first pale sunshine and the wisps of mist still hanging on the high tops.”

— James Herriot

23. “If I had been a little dog I’d have gone leaping and gambolling around the room wagging my tail furiously.”

— James Herriot

24. “All young animals are appealing but the lamb has been given an unfair share of charm.”

— James Herriot

25. “As I say, I rather pride myself on this little expertise and even today my veterinary colleagues have been known to remark: “Old Herriot may be limited in many respects but by God he can wrap a cat.” As.”

— James Herriot

26. “For years I used to bore my wife over lunch with stories about funny incidents.”

— James Herriot

27. “Las cosas suelen resultar mejor de lo que uno espera.”

— James Herriot

28. “Why had I entered this profession? I could have gone in for something easier and gentler – like coalmining or lumberjacking.”

— James Herriot

29. “If a farmer calls me to a sick animal, he couldn’t care less if I were George Bernard Shaw.”

— James Herriot

30. “When all t’world goes one road, I go t’other.”

— James Herriot

31. “AS I CRAWLED INTO bed and put my arm around Helen it occurred to me, not for the first time, that there are few pleasures in this world to compare with snuggling up to a nice woman when you are half frozen.”

— James Herriot

32. “Every day lasts a year. I never enjoy anything. And every morning when I wake up I dread having to face the world again.”

— James Herriot

33. “Now then, young man,” he cried in the nasal twang of the West Riding. “I’m Mr. Dinsdale’s brother. I farm over in Listondale.” I put down my equipment and nodded. “How do you do? My name is Herriot.”

— James Herriot

34. “He loved the stuff. But unfortunately he couldn’t say “Propamidine.” In fact nobody on the entire establishment could say it except Charlie the farm foreman and he only thought he could say it. He called it “Propopamide” but his lordship had the utmost faith in him.”

— James Herriot

35. “In fact I think the Gods love people like Tristan who sway effortlessly before the winds of fate and spring back with a smile, looking on life always with blithe optimism.”

— James Herriot

36. “He was polishing the glass with a dead hen.”

— James Herriot

37. “I can’t bear it, Mr. Herriot. He was like a Christian was that pig, just like a Christian.”

— James Herriot

38. “Old Herriot may be limited in some respects, but by God, he can wrap a cat.”

— James Herriot

39. “My mind went back to my school-days and an old gentleman talking to the class about careers. He had said: “If you decide to become a veterinary surgeon you will never grow rich but you will have a life of endless interest and variety.” I laughed aloud in the darkness and as I got into the car I was still chuckling. That old chap certainly wasn’t kidding. Variety. That was it – variety.”

— James Herriot

40. “There are great days ahead!”

— James Herriot

41. “She’s out, Jim! The bugger’s out!” Well this was great. Anybody who has driven a car with a hysterical cat hurtling around the interior will appreciate my situation.”

— James Herriot

42. “First job I had to do was pass the stomach tube on a horse. Got it into the trachea instead of the oesophagus. Couple of quick pumps and down went the horse with a hell of a crash – dead as a hammer. That’s when I started these grey hairs.”

— James Herriot

43. “All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. Cecil Frances Alexander 1818-1895.”

— James Herriot

44. “I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box.”

— James Herriot

45. “This time, the seat went over quicker than usual and I hurtled backwards, coming to rest with my head among some Wellingtons and my knees tucked underneath my chin. A row of surprised faces peered in at me through the back window, but soon, willing hands were helping me up and the trick seat was placed upright on its rockers again. I wondered how long it had been like that and if my employer had ever thought of having it fixed. We.”

— James Herriot

46. “What I didn’t notice was that the passenger seat was not fixed to the floor but stood freely on its sledge-like runners. I dropped into it and went over backwards, finishing with my head on the rear seat and my feet against the roof. Farnon helped me up, apologising with great charm, and we set off. Once.”

— James Herriot

47. “Me dad used to say a strange dog would allus get a cow up.” There were murmurs of assent from the assembled farmers and immediate offers of dogs. I tried to point out that one would be enough but my authority had dwindled and anyway everybody seemed anxious to demonstrate their dogs’ cow-raising potential. There.”

— James Herriot

48. “I think it was the fact that I liked it so much that made the writing just come out of me automatically.”

— James Herriot

49. “Uncle was aghast. “You don’t know him! Well you’re the only one as doesn’t. They think the world of him in Listondale, I can tell you.” He lapsed into a shocked silence and applied a match to his pipe.”

— James Herriot

50. “I will write another book if I feel like it.”

— James Herriot