Watership Down quotes

View Quote Fiver: There's something very **** about the warren this evening...
Hazel: Is it dangerous?
Fiver: It's not exactly danger, it's... oh, I don't know. Something oppressive... like thunder.

View Quote General Woundwort: Why throw your life away?
Bigwig: Hraka, ... sir!
General Woundwort: Come out!
Bigwig: My chief has told me to defend this run.
General Woundwort: [Stunned] Your ... chief?

View Quote General Woundwort: You were one of those on the riverbank. Did Bigwig send you?
Hazel: I'm a friend of Bigwig's.
General Woundwort: What was left unfinished on the riverbank will be finished now.
Hazel: It would be better for both of us if we could come to terms.
General Woundwort: Terms?... Very well. These are my terms. Hand over all the deserters immediately.
Hazel: We couldn't agree to that. But I can suggest something better, for both of us--
General Woundwort: [dangerous] You're in no position to bargain.
Hazel: We shouldn't be fighting each other. We have enough enemies as it is. Perhaps we should be together. A joining of free, independent warrens.
General Woundwort: [considers this] Ah, I have no time for this nonsense!
Campion: Shall I kill him, sir?
General Woundwort: No. [to Hazel] You take back our terms. And you tell your chief, Bigwig, that if he and Hyzenthlay and the others aren't waiting outside when I come for them, I'll tear out every throat in the place!

View Quote General Woundwort: Your name?
Hyzenthlay: Hyzenthlay, sir.
General Woundwort: I'll be frank with you. You're safe here. Well, get on with it!
Hyzenthlay: Sir, several of us propose an expedition for...a new warren. Somewhere else.
General Woundwort: A new warren?! Out of the question!
Hyzenthlay: Oh, but you don't understand. The system is breaking down.
General Woundwort: Explain that.
Hyzenthlay: Some of us can't produce litters; we're overcrowded.
General Woundwort: I want no further discussion about it!
Hyzenthlay: We'll go as far as you like!
General Woundwort: Here or anywhere else!
Hyzenthlay: I... [she is approached threateningly by Captain Campion] Thank you, sir. [leaves]
General Woundwort: Campion, have her watched.

View Quote Hazel: [Bigwig is being strangled in a snare] Bigwig! Listen, you're in a snare! A snare! And what did they tell you in Owsla? Think!
[Hazel tries to chew the wire loose]
Bigwig: No good biting wire...

View Quote Hazel: Did you find anything on your flight?
Kehaar: Efrafa.
Hazel: Can you guide us there?
Kehaar: Many rabbits. Too many rabbits.
Holly: A lot of us wouldn't be enough to fight one of their wide patrols.
Bigwig: What do you mean?
Holly: [shows Bigwig the scar on his shoulder] You see this? They did it to me. It's an identification mark. Tells you when you can be above ground.
Bigwig: What do you mean? Who's to stop you?
Holly: Their Owsla. Their chief is called Woundwort. General Woundwort. I don't think even you'd match up to him, Bigwig. Under him are his captains, each one in charge of a Mark. If you're found above ground at the wrong time, they take you before the Council for punishment.
Bigwig: Some of them must get away.
Holly: They caught one trying to run away when I was there. Blackavar was his name. When they'd finished with him, both his ears were ripped to shreds...worse than this one of mine. He was lucky not to have been killed. There was another one, a doe, Hyzenthlay. I couldn't have escaped without her help.
Sliver: Why didn't she go with you?
Holly: She wouldn't go without the others.
Hazel: Then there are some that might be persuaded to leave?
Holly: Oh, yes. But you'd never get them out of Efrafa.
Dandelion: Well, you got out.
Holly: Only because Lord Frith sent one of his great messengers. [a flashback shows Holly running away from two Efrafans, the Efrafans are run over by a train and Holly rolls down a steep slope] I didn't see what happened to them. It must have cut them down.
Hazel: Well, it's not going to be easy, but I'm afraid we don't have much choice. We'll start off as soon as I'm fit to travel.
Holly: I don't like this idea of yours at all, Hazel.
Hazel: Holly, I want you to stay here. You're known to them and it could be dangerous for you.
Holly: I've been in Efrafa, and I tell you you're making a bad mistake that might very well get you all killed.

View Quote Hazel: Lord Frith, I know you've looked after us well, and it's wrong to ask even more of you. But my people are in terrible danger, and so I would like to make a bargain with you. My life in return for theirs.
Frith: There is not a day or night when a mother doe does not offer her life for her kittens, or an honest captain of Owsla his life for his chief's. But there is no bargain. What is, is what must be.

View Quote Hazel: Where are you going?
Fiver: Away, to the hills.
Hazel: By yourself, alone? You'll die!
Fiver: You're closer to death than I am.

View Quote Holly: [to Fiver] I remember you. You're the one that saw it coming.
Pipkin: But what happened?
Holly: Our warren, destroyed!
Silver: Destroyed? How?
Holly: Men came. Filled in the burrows. Couldn't get out. There was a strange sound. Hissing. The air turned bad. Runs blocked with dead bodies. I couldn't get out. Everything turned mad. Warren, herbs, roots, grass, all pushed into the earth.
Blackberry: Men have always hated us.
Holly: No. They just destroyed the warren because we were in their way.

View Quote Hyzenthlay: Sometimes I can tell when things are true. Sometimes... I can see it... The high down with trees, and... [shakes head] I've become foolish.
Bigwig: [referring to Fiver] You'll have to meet this friend of mine. He talks just like that.

View Quote Pipkin: [while all are digging in the rain] What's happening back home, I wonder? Think, when we lived in our own burrows? Dry, soft, warm bodies...
Dandelion: [to Hazel] Look, we can't go on like this.
Silver: It keeps getting worse and worse wherever we go. Where ARE we going?
Hazel: It won't be much longer, then we can all rest.
Silver: How MUCH longer?
Pipkin: We never should have left.
Blackberry: Suppose Fiver's all wrong?
Pipkin: We want to go back and find out.
Hazel: Go back? After all we've been through?
Bigwig: And probably get killed for wounding Captain Holly? An Owsla officer? Talk sense, for Frith's sake!

View Quote Violet: [Running from a badger] It had just killed. I saw blood on it's lips.
Dandelion: Lucky for us it had, otherwise it might have been quicker!

View Quote [After the rabbits decide to ask Kehaar to find mates for them]
Kehaar: [sitting and musing in a burrow] What home? This hole? Where are mates? Where are chicks? Mate make eggs, mate sit on eggs, hatch eggs, many eggs. We feed chicks. Egg robbers come, we fight.
[Bigwig pounces on him from behind to get his attention]
Kehaar: YAAAAAAAAAH, YAAAAAAAAAAH!!! KAH, KAH, KAH, KAH, KAH, KAH, KAH!!! YOU STUPID BUNNIES! You got no mates! Where are mates?! WHERE ARE CHICKS?! Plenty trouble for you! You need MATES!
Bigwig: [whispering] It's working, Hazel.
Kehaar: You got no brains! You no plan! You need mates for plan! Listen - I got plan for you. Wing better. I go fly; fly for you. I find mates.
Hazel: What a splendid idea, Kehaar!
Blackberry: How clever of you to think of it. You very fine bird.

View Quote [After they've been fighting]
Bigwig: I told you once that I was trying to impress you... I hope I have.
General Woundwort: And I told you I would kill you myself! There's no white bird here, Bigwig!

View Quote [Campion and the other Efrafans see the dog that Hazel and the others have unleashed on them]
Campion: Run! Run for your lives! Run!
[Woundwort emerges from the hole and sees his soldiers fleeing at the sight of the dog]
General Woundwort: Come back! Come back, you fools!
Campion: Run!
General Woundwort: Come back! Come back and fight! Dogs aren't dangerous!
[the dog drops a dead Efrafan and then comes after Woundwort, who lunges]