Jim Crace Quotes

It is thought that the changeover from hunter to farmer was a slow, gradual process.

Geographically, Ireland is a medium-sized rural island that is slowly but steadily being consumed by sheep.

This is going to make me sound ancient, but I remember Juhu Beach when there weren't any buildings on it. You'd go through countryside and arrive at this amazing beach. I remember driving from Delhi to the Qutab Minar through countryside. Mehrauli was a little village - that's all gone.

Cambodia is barbarian. The people do not know the proper way to grow food. They use mattocks and hoes but no oxen. They grow enough rice … but do not know how to store rice for an emergency.

One of the great tragedies is that there is so much less open land available in Japan today. Many Japanese come to New Zealand because of its beauty.

There are huge pluses in Scottish archaeology that you simply don't get elsewhere. Partly that's to do with the tragedy of the clearances, and that so much of the landscape has been owned by so few people that didn't want it messed around with.

I had never understood why the farmlands of the U.S. had been settled in such a sparse and isolated way, whereas the farming communities in Europe seemed closer, more convivial, centered around village life.

Save the stonewall to build the levees.

I want people to be excited about cooling towers and megasheds; they're as much part of our history as the rural barn.

Sheep farming is heavily subsidized in Great Britain. Without the subsidies, the green grazing in the valley of the River Exe would be gone. The handsome agricultural landscape of which the British are so proud, carefully husbanded since Boudicca's day, would be replaced by natural growth. The most likely growth is real-estate developments.

I spent a lot of time on farms when I was growing up, and I've been obsessed with the practical logic of farmyards - the turning radius of tractors, where the chickens and ducks might go. It's not a place where stand-alone aesthetic decisions make a lot of sense.

I'm a farmer now, and it's fantastic. My goal is to be totally self-sufficient and grow everything that I eat. There's something about earning your dinner that's cool.

Windmills are going to be the death of Scotland and even England if they don't do something about them. They are ruining the countryside.

My childhood home backed onto wheat and cotton fields.

It is unthinkable to have a British countryside that doesn't have actual functioning farmers riding tractors, cows in fields, things like that.

If you're in any field, you should own a farm because one day you will be grateful that you are able to grow your own agricultural produce.

I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a transitional area that was surrounded by farmland that wasn't being cultivated.

When I was a punk teenager, I rebelled because lots of people in Iceland think that foreigners are evil and that if you don't wear woolen hats and eat sheep, you're betraying your heritage.

I have fruit trees. Cows for fresh milk, yoghurt. My own wheat. I'm basically self-sufficient.

Growing up in eastern Turkey, I was not really involved with the family business - sheep and cow farming, yogurt and cheese making. But I think I learned from my father the unspoken business language or instincts that go back thousands of years.

There is also a marked global trend towards sustainable agriculture, building on traditional methods which use fewer chemical inputs, carefully manage soil and water resources, and work hand-in-hand with nature.

I farm taro. I have eight varieties of taro, which is a staple of the Hawaiian people from about 2,000 years ago, and sweet potatoes, and it's a sustainable living, agriculture, off the grid.

If Yucca Mountain had not been designated as a dumpsite for radioactive waste in 1987, it might easily have become a scenic overlook on the long drive between Tonopah and Las Vegas.

If you've got a plot the size of a car or a tiny yard in Italy, you're going to be growing tomatoes and basil and celery and carrots, and everybody is still connected to the land.

The land is ours. It's not European and we have taken it, we have given it to the rightful people... Those of white extraction who happen to be in the country and are farming are welcome to do so, but they must do so on the basis of equality.