Top 23 Quotes & Sayings by Farley Mowat

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Canadian author Farley Mowat.

Last updated on April 14, 2025.

Farley McGill Mowat, was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf (1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983. For his body of work as a writer he won the annual Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 1970.

Canadian - Author | Born: May 12, 1921

Source: Wikipedia

We're under some gross misconception that we're a good species, going somewhere important, and that at the last minute we'll correct our errors and God will smile on us. It's delusion.

Farley Mowat

Without a function, we cease to be. So, I will write till I die.

Farley Mowat

I write every day. I'm always in the process of writing my last book, until the next one.

Farley Mowat

I write better in Cape Breton... too many people around in Ontario. Down there I meet all sorts of non-human people, but they don't bother me, and I don't feel I have to apologize on behalf of my species quite so often.

Farley Mowat

Ah me son, we don't be takin' nothin' from the sea. We has to sneak up on what we wants and wiggle it away

Farley Mowat

The wolf never kills for fun, which is probably one of the main differences distinguishing him from man.

Farley Mowat

You never know when the devil might come calling.

Farley Mowat

Inaction will cause a man to sink into the slough of despond and vanish without a trace.

Farley Mowat

We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.

Farley Mowat

Don't make a big distinction between fiction and non-fiction. These are arbitrary distinctions.

Farley Mowat

Stephen Harper is probably the most dangerous human being ever elevated to power in Canada.

Farley Mowat

If you are going to be a big personality, you've got to have some kind of characteristic gimmick.

Farley Mowat

I never let the facts get in the way of the truth!

Farley Mowat

I believe in God the way my dog does

Farley Mowat

And this is what happened, ands this is why the caribou and the wolf are one; for the caribou feeds the wolf, but it is the wolf that keeps the caribou strong.

Farley Mowat

Truth I have no trouble with, it's the facts I get all screwed up.

Farley Mowat

It is in our nature to travel into our past, hoping thereby to illuminate the darkness that bedevils the present.

Farley Mowat

Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destory; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.

Farley Mowat

Mutt enjoyed traveling by car, but he was an unquiet passenger. He suffered from the delusion, common to dogs and small boys, that when he was looking out the right-hand side, he was probably missing something far more interesting on the left-hand side.

Farley Mowat

After all, we fought the Yanks in 1812 and kicked them the hell out of our country - but not with blanks.

Farley Mowat

On my 70th birthday, I was asked how I felt about mankind's prospects. This is my reply: We are behaving like yeasts in a brewer's vat, multiplying mindlessly while greedily consuming the substance of a finite world. If we continue to imitate the yeasts, we will perish as they perish, having exhausted our resources and poisoned ourselves in the lethal brew of our own wastes. Unlike the yeasts, we have a choice. What will it be?

Farley Mowat

I have to go on writing because I wouldn't be able to go on without writing. It is the only function that works for me, and without that function, I would die.

Farley Mowat

Don't let the facts interfere with the truth.

Farley Mowat

Top 23 Quotes & Sayings by Farley Mowat

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