The Constant Rabbit

Somebody once said that the library is actually the dominant life form on the planet. Humans simply exist as the reproductive means to achieve more libraries.

She was named Jocaminca fforkes, with two small 'f's - as if having two 'f's wasn't pretentious enough

Humans have a very clear idea about how to behave, and on many occasions actually do. But it’s sometimes disheartening that correct action is drowned out by endless chitter-chatter, designed not to find a way forward but to justify petty jealousies and illogically held prejudices. If you’re going to talk, try to make it relevant, useful and progressive rather than simply distracting and time-wasting nonsense, intended only to justify the untenable and postpone the real dialogue that needs to happen.

It was one of those British phrases, along with ‘May I help you?’, that can be either exceedingly polite or hugely aggressive.

Gregors’, ‘Greggs’ or ‘The Maccy-Gs’ are all rabbit slang for law enforcement agents, named after Mr McGregor, the villain in the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit books. In the dubbed-into-Rabbity version of Star Wars, Darth Vader is literally translated as ‘Mr McGregor’.

Prejudice is best lubricated with ignorance

Shame is the gateway emotion to increased self-criticism, which leads to realisation, an apology, outrage and eventually meaningful action. We're not holding our breaths that any appreciable members can be arsed to make the journey along that difficult chain of emotional honesty – many good people get past realisation, only to then get horribly stuck at apology – but we live in hope.

Rabbits never drove fast. They like to enjoy the view, didn't much care for speed and besides, it was wasteful of fuel. If you want to get somewhere a long way away, just leave early. Days, if that's required. Or, as Samuel C. Rabbit had it: 'nhffnfhfiifhfnnffhrhrfhrf' or 'to travel joyously is better than to arrive.

The way we see it, London is just one massive money-laundering scheme attached to an impressive public transport system and a few museums, of which even the most honest has more stolen goods than a lock-up garage in Worcester rented by a guy I know called Chalky.

We are all actors,' said Connie. 'Our true feelings and desires hidden behind masks carved from the trammels of accepted social norms. Wouldn't you say so?

The Spontaneous Anthropomorphic Event had taken place before I was born, so rabbits talking, wearing summer dresses or driving cars never seemed that unusual to me.

While most humans are wired to be reasonably decent, a few are wired to be utter shits -- and they do tend to tip the balance.

She was, after all, only a rabbit.

The decent humans are generally supportive of doing the right thing,’ said the Venerable Bunty, ‘but never take it much farther than that. You’re trashing the ecosystem for no reason other than a deluded sense of anthropocentric manifest destiny, and until you stop talking around the issue and actually feel some genuine guilt, there’ll be no change.’ ‘Shame, for want of a better word, is good,’ said Finkle. ‘Shame is right, shame works. Shame is the gateway emotion to increased self-criticism, which leads to realisation, an apology, outrage and eventually meaningful action.

I’m sure Pol Pot only wanted the best for Cambodia,’ I replied, ‘but it didn’t really work out that way.

There's nothing brave, noble, or exceptional in doing the right thing.

You're trying to run a twenty-first century world on paleolithic thoughts and sentiments.

when you’ve lusted after bacon and eggs, my friend, you’ve already committed breakfast in your soul.

Connie, in what I realised later was an effort to steer the conversation to where she needed it, mentioned that Fortean Times had reported that a moose shot dead by a hunter was later found to have amassed a considerable library of George Eliot novels, critical appraisals, biographies and poetry, and had been attempting to write a dissertation on how Eliot’s life could be viewed from the viewpoint of even-toed ungulates singled out for their lack of apparent good looks.

Of course,’ I said, and sat down beside her. ‘But I’m not an actor.’ ‘We are all actors,’ said Connie. ‘Our true feelings and desires hidden behind masks carved from the trammels of accepted social norms. Wouldn’t you say so?

He always did his shopping in Waitrose, as it was ‘a positive British experience generally unsullied by the presence of foreigners’.

The most decorated service rabbit in history was RAF Navigation Officer Danielle ‘Thumper’ Rabbit, who ejected from a Tornado over Iraq when it was hit by a surface-to-air missile. She wrote about her time as a POW in Bouncing Out of Tikrit, and it was quite a good read, although critics did find fault with the overlong detail of Iraqi salad in the latter part of the book.