Bird Quotes - Page 39

• As I watch, the sky fills with clouds of snow feathers from every kind of bird there ever was and even some that only exist in the imagination, like the bluebirds that fly over the rainbow.

  Kate Atkinson

  Clouds, Sky, Snow

  Kate Atkinson (2013). “Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel”, p.170, Macmillan

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• They trekked out along the crescent sweep of beach, keeping to the firmer sand below the tidewrack. They stood, their clothes flapping softly. Glass floats covered with a gray crust. The bones of seabirds. At the tideline a woven mat of weeds and the ribs of fishes in their millions stretching along the shore as far as the eye could see like an isocline of death. One vast salt sepulchre. Senseless. Senseless.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Weed, Beach, Eye

  Cormac McCarthy (2007). “The Road”, p.187, Vintage

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• The carrion birds sat about the topmost corners of the houses with their wings outstretched in attitudes of exhortation like dark little bishops.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Attitude, Dark, Wings

  Cormac McCarthy (2015). “Blood Meridian: Picador Classic”, p.62, Pan Macmillan

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• He sits in an old armchair in the corner covered with bits of blankets and a bucket behind the chair that stinks enough to make you sick and when you look at that old man in the dark corner you want to get a hose with hot water and strip him and wash him down and give him a big feed of rashers and eggs and mashed potatoes with loads of butter and salt and onions.I want to take the man from the Boer War and the pile of rags in the bed and put them in a big sunny house in the country with birds chirping away outside the window and a stream gurgling.

  Frank McCourt

  Country, War, Dark

  Frank McCourt (1999). “Angela's Ashes: A Memoir”, p.317, Simon and Schuster

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• All the men she's been with and now you, just you, and the barges going by, masts and hulls, the whole damned current of life flowing through you, through her, through all the guys behind you and after you, the flowers and the birds and the sun streaming in and the fragrance of it choking you, annihilating you.

  Henry Miller

  Flower, Men, Guy

  Henry Miller, Norman Mailer (1976). “Genius and lust: a journey through the major writings of Henry Miller”, Grove Press

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• A bird, music and food -desert island items

  Michael Johnson

  Islands, Desert, Items

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• Impartial observers from other planets would consider ours an utterly bizarre enclave if it were populated by birds, defined as flying animals, that nevertheless rarely or never actually flew. They would also be perplexed if they encountered in our seas, lakes, rivers, and ponds, creatures defined as swimmers that never did any swimming. But they would be even more surprised to encounter a species defined as a thinking animal if, in fact, the creature very rarely indulged in actual thinking.

  Steve Allen

  Swimming, Thinking, Animal

  Steve Allen (1998). “Dumbth: The Lost Art of Thinking : with 101 Ways to Reason Better & Improve Your Mind”

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• Women and birds are able to see without turning their heads, and that is indeed a necessary provision for they are both surrounded by enemies.

  James Stephens

  Enemy, Able, Provision

  James Stephens (1962). “A James Stephens Reader”

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• Inventive man has invented nothing -- nothing from scratch. If he has produced a machine that in motion overcomes the law of gravity, he learned the essentials from the observation of birds.

  Dorothy Thompson

  Men, Law, Overcoming

  Dorothy Thompson (1957). “The Courage to be Happy”

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• I have figured for you the distance between the horns of a dilemma, night and day, and A and Z. I have computed how far is Up, how long it takes to get Away, and what becomes of Gone. I have discovered the length of the sea serpent, the price of priceless, and the square of the hippopotamus. I know where you are when you are at Sixes and Sevens, how much Is you have to have to make an Are, and how many birds you can catch with the salt in the ocean - 187,796,132, if it would interest you.

  James Thurber

  Distance, Ocean, Night

  James Thurber, Marc Simont (1998). “Many Moons”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In days of yore, the poet's pen From wing of bird was plunder'd, Perhaps of goose, but now and then, From Jove's own eagle sunder'd. But now, metallic pens disclose Alone the poet's numbers; In iron inspiration glows, Or with the poet slumbers.

  John Adams

  Inspiration, Iron, Numbers

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• Every sky with its varied tints and every feather of each bird were coloured by hand; and when it is considered that nearly two hundred and eighty thousand illustrations in the present work have been so treated, it will most likely cause some astonishment to those who give the subject a thought.

  John Gould

  Book, Sky, Two

  John Gould (1873). “An Introduction to the Birds of Great Britain”, p.4

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• If you do not have a loving concern for the environment... it will no longer sustain you - you will not be worthy of it. You will not be destroying the planet, you see. You will not be destroying the birds, or the flowers, or the grain, or the animals... they will be destroying you.

  Seth

  Flower, Animal, Environment

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• The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man; insomuch, that if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, cruel people, who, nevertheless, are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds.

  John Locke

  Dog, Men, Issues

  John Locke (1813). “The Conduct of the Understanding: With Sketches of the Lives of Locke and Bacon”, p.133

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• Happy indeed is the naturalist: to him the seasons come round like old friends; to him the birds sing: as he walks along, the flowers stretch out from the hedges, or look up from the ground, and as each year fades away, he looks back on a fresh store of happy memories.

  John Lubbock

  Memories, Flower, Years

  Sir John Lubbock (1897). “The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live In”, p.5, Library of Alexandria

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• Love seems to beautify and inspire all nature. It raises the earthly caterpillar into the ethereal butterfly, it paints the feathers in spring, it lights the glowworm's lamp, it wakens the song of birds, and inspires the poet's lay. Even inanimate Nature seems to feel the spell, and flowers glow with the richest colours.

  John Lubbock

  Song, Spring, Flower

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• Deep in my heart subsides the infrequent word, And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird.

  Francis Thompson

  Heart, Wounded, Dies

  Francis Thompson (2002). “Poems of Francis Thompson”, p.16, A&C Black

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• The experience of playing music at a young age really opens up one's mind to different melody in life itself, literally - like, when you've even played a recorder, or whatever, it becomes a lot easier to hear the beauty in a bird's song, or the quiet tune in a gentle rustle of the wind.

  Dave Smalley

  Song, Wind, Mind

  Source: www.pmakid.com

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• The first comedians I became fascinated with were the Marx brothers. I couldn't get enough of them. Later in life, I thought, "Well, maybe it's because they were so rebellious and they were just flipping the bird to society and all the rules we're supposed to follow." They were saying that none of it is fair.

  Judd Apatow

  Brother, Later In Life, Comedian

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. July 30, 2009.

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• Anyway, I'm digressing, but this is just kind of this 10-and-a-half-minute, ambient - you hear cicadas and birds and the wind outside and crickets as I'm swelling the piece. I could never do that on a pop record. I could, but why would I want to be agitating?

  Andrew Bird

  Wind, Pieces, Records

  Interview with Genevieve Koski, music.avclub.com. January 20, 2009.

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• What you see at the Field Museum is only like, 10 percent of the collection. It's birds of paradise and passenger pigeons and in all these drawers that pull out, these specimens come out and it's spectacular. And it worked out.

  Andrew Bird

  Museums, Paradise, Fields

  Interview with Genevieve Koski, music.avclub.com. January 20, 2009.

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• Man's greatest advances are weapon advances. Culture follows from weaponry, we are militant like the animals and birds - defending our homes. No matter how far back you go in history, along with the struggle for existence, along with the survival necessities - kill or be killed, eat or be eaten - there is a hunger for something spiritual. He invents God, prayers, incantations to something above him. Why? This is not brought out - this is not weapon culture.

  Frank Capra

  Spiritual, Prayer, Struggle

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I spent money on a decent bike, a bit of kit for paddle boarding and I like bird watching so I bought a decent pair of binoculars but as far as bottles of Cristal champagne and Gucci loafers? No, blingy and showy stuff isn't me.

  Bill Bailey

  Bottles, Stuff, Pairs

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• One of the best gifts you can give a poet is to present them with field guides - to rocks, to stars, to birds, to wildflowers, to trees and bushes, to butterflies, to reptiles and amphibians. Because when you look at anything long enough to be able to identify it, you see far more clearly and you make a tiny beginning at understanding the life, the place, the history of that bird or rock or mammal.

  Marge Piercy

  Stars, Butterfly, Rocks

  Source: margepiercy.com

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• One day I'm going to write a book about osprey. It has really gotten deep into my bloodstream. So when you ask what else I do, I feel like this is part of what I do....is to watch these birds.

  Alan Lightman

  Book, Writing, One Day

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. November 16, 2000.

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