Literary Birthday – 3 October – James Herriot

James Herriot was born on 3 October 1916 and died on 23 February 1995.

James Herriot Quotes

1. Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. For years I used to bore my wife over lunch with stories about funny incidents.
5. I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box.
6. If a farmer calls me to a sick animal, he couldn’t care less if I were George Bernard Shaw.
7. 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 was a British veterinary surgeon and writer. Herriot being his pen name, James Alfred Wight began writing about his experiences as a country veterinarian in England and his humorous and lively tales have reached millions of people. He used his experiences as a vet to write a series of books of stories about animals and their owners, referred to collectively as All Creatures Great and Small. Wight’s other works included James Herriot’s Yorkshire. Wight received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1979, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1979 New Year Honours. In honour of his contributions to literature and to the veterinary profession, the James Herriot Library was founded at the University of Glasgow in 1995.

Source for Image: The World Of James Herriot

by Amanda Patterson
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