Sparrows Quotes - Page 6

• Kathy Nightingale: What's good about sad? Sally Sparrow: It's happy for deep people.

  Steven Moffat

  People, Nightingales, Doctor Who

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• He looked resigned, as though he knew that wretched door--to where? Home? Heaven? Peace?--would never open, and at the same time he seemed resolved, ready to do his bit even though he couldn't possibly know what sacrifices that would require. Had he been kept here, too--in a place he didn't belong, serving in a war in which he hadn't enlisted, to rescue sparrows and soldiers and shopgirls and Shakespeare? To tip the balance?

  Connie Willis

  War, Home, Sacrifice

  Connie Willis (2010). “All Clear”, p.635, Spectra

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• It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Hurt, Rooms, Tiny

  Laurie Halse Anderson (2011). “Speak”, p.109, Macmillan

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• Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

  John Steinbeck

  Art, Father, Boys

  John Steinbeck (2001). “Novels, 1942-1952”

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• Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there; She gives the best light to his sphere; Or each is both, and all, and so They unto one another nothing owe; And yet they do, but are So just and rich in that coin which they pay, That neither would, nor needs forbear, nor stay; Neither desires to be spared nor to spare. They quickly pay their debt, and then Take no acquittances, but pay again; They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fall No such occasion to be liberal. More truth, more courage in these two do shine, Than all thy turtles have and sparrows, Valentine.

  John Donne

  Lying, Valentine, Fall

  John Donne (1996). “Selected Poetry”, p.47, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Please, God,' Ruth would pray, 'don't let me be competitive. Let me realize what a privilege it is to study. Let me remember that knowledge must be pursued for its own sake and please, please stop me wanting to beat Verena Plackett in the exams.' She prayed hard and she meant what she said. But God was busy that autumn as the International Brigade came back, defeated, from Spain, Hitler's bestialities increased, and sparrows everywhere continued to fall.

  Eva Ibbotson

  Fall, Autumn, Spain

  Eva Ibbotson (2008). “The Morning Gift”, p.126, Pan Macmillan

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• Perhaps this was how the sparrows did it too; perhaps they were looking so hard at the peaks and tips of the new rooftops coated with dew, and the vast new horizon, that they only forgot that they did not know how to fly until they were already in midair.

  Lauren Oliver

  New Horizons, Dew, Rooftops

  Lauren Oliver (2011). “Liesl & Po”, p.68, Hachette UK

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• It's so different to be a sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made. Nobody said, 'Wouldn't you rather be a sparrow?

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Different, Rats, Made

  Frances Hodgson Burnett (2016). “A Little Princess”, p.75, Xist Publishing

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• Gentlemen, I have lived a long time and am convinced that God governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? I move that prayer imploring the assistance of Heaven be held every morning before we proceed to business.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Morning, Prayer, Moving

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• . . . my pilot pointed to his left front and above, and looking in the direction he pointed, I saw a long dark brown form fairly streaking across the sky. We could see that it was a German machine, and when it got above and behind our middle machine, it dived on it for all the world like a huge hawk on a hapless sparrow.

  James McCudden

  Dark, Sky, Long

  James McCudden (2009). “Flying Fury: Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps”, p.85, Casemate / Greenhill

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• Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death of a sparrow in the corner of a barn.

  Anouk Aimee

  Death, Children, Moving

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• Pastor Veronica told the story of a sparrow lying in the street with its legs straight up in the air, straining. a warhorse walks up to it, and says, 'What on earth are you doing?' The sparrow replies, 'I heard the sky was falling, and I wanted to help.'The warhorse sneers-- 'Do you really think you're going to hold back the sky, with those scrawny little legs?' And the sparrow says, 'One does what one can.'

  Anne Lamott

  Lying, Fall, Thinking

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• I extol those who, with loving care and compassionate concern, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and house the homeless. He who notes the sparrow's fall will not be unmindful of such service.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Fall, House, Naked

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• In the woods, if you stopped, if you grew still, you'd hear a whole new set of sounds, wind rasping through silhouetted leaves and the cries and chatter of blue jays and brown thrashers and redbirds and sparrows, the calling of crows and hawks, squirrels barking, frogs burping, the far braying of dogs, armadillos snorkeling through dead leaves.

  Tom Franklin

  Dog, Squirrels, Blue

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• Throughout history, men have tried to play God by moving rabbits, goats, sparrows, mongooses, and a hundred other species to oceanic islands and island continents, and later have wished to God they hadn't.

  Victor Blanchard Scheffer

  Moving, Men, Islands

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• In the heart of the God of the universe, each child of his is as necessary to him as the fingers are to the hand.-In the marvelous design of the universe, not even a sparrow can fall to earth meaninglessly.

  Toyohiko Kagawa

  Children, Fall, Heart

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• What is the best that lies within us? Of how much are we capable? None of us yet knows. An old Arabic legend tells of a rider finding a spindly sparrow lying on its back in the middle of the road. He dismounted and asked the sparrow why his feet were in the air. Replied the sparrow, "I heard the heavens were going to fall today." "And I suppose you think your puny bird legs can hold up the whole universe?" laughed the horseman. "Perhaps not," said the sparrow with conviction, "but one does whatever one can.

  Jeffrey R. Holland

  Lying, Fall, Thinking

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• Nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow speared by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey.

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Nature, World, Littles

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2014). “Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Selected Poetry: A Broadview Anthology of British Literature Edition”, p.216, Broadview Press

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• One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it's true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.

  Diane Wakoski

  Book, Numbers, Long

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• Blow kisses to the oak trees and sparrows and elephants and weeds.

  Rob Brezsny

  Weed, Nature, Kissing

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• They were saying, 'Keep this under your hat, but Jack Sparrow's going to die in the second movie.' I went, 'You're kidding me. The fans are going to go berserk.'

  Geoffrey Rush

  Fans, Hats, Berserk

  "Capt. Barbossa’s back: An interview with Geoffrey Rush". Associated Press Interview, www.ocregister.com. May 23, 2007.

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• My lady's sparrow is dead, the sparrow which was my lady's delight

  Catullus

  Delight

  Carmina no. 3

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• stop spying on the lawful citizenry. Democracy and dossiers go ill together. It is all right for God but all wrong for the State to keep its eye on sparrows.

  Martha Gellhorn

  Eye, Rights, Democracy

  Martha Gellhorn (2014). “The View from the Ground”, p.284, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I cannot walk under the wires. The sparrows scatter like handfuls of gravel. Really, wires are voices in thin strips. They are words wound in cables. Bars of connection.

  William H. Gass

  Voice, Wire, Connections

  William H. Gass (1968). “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country & Other Stories”, p.191, David R. Godine Publisher

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• Tiny as a sparrow, fierce as an eagle, Lisbeth Salander is one of the great Scandinavian avengers of our time, an angry bird catapulting into the fortresses of power and wiping smiles off the faces of smug, predatory pigs.

  A. O. Scott

  Pigs, Eagles, Bird

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