White Birds Quotes

• I am haunted by numberless islands, many a Danaan shore,
  Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be,
  Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

  William Butler Yeats

  Flames, Sea, White

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.130, Penguin

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• He's got hands so long and white and dainty I think they carved each other out of soap, and sometimes they get loose and glide around in front of him free as two white birds until he notices them and traps them between his knees; it bothers him that he's got pretty hands.

  Ken Kesey

  Thinking, Hands, Two

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.9, Hamilton Books

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• Of all created things the source is one, Simple, single as love; remember The cell and seed of life, the sphere That is, of child, white bird, and small blue dragon-fly Green fern, and the gold four-petalled tormentilla The ultimate memory. Each latent cell puts out a future, Unfolds its differing complexity As a tree puts forth leaves, and spins a fate Fern-traced, bird feathered, or fish-scaled.

  Kathleen Raine

  Life, Memories, Children

  Kathleen Raine (1989). “Selected Poems”, p.55, SteinerBooks

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• Smoke says the beef is much better than the squawky white birds. Her expression changed from annoyed to dismayed. Squawky white birds? Chickens? You ate Mrs. Beale's chickens?Smoke whined apologetically.Saetan leaned back in his chair. Oh, it was so satisfying to see her thrown off stride. I'm sure Mrs. Beale was delighted to feed a guest - even if she wasn't aware of it, he added dryly, remembering too well his cook's reaction when she learned about the missing hens.

  Anne Bishop

  White, Expression, Missing

  Anne Bishop (2007). “Heir to the Shadows: The Black Jewels Trilogy 2”, p.178, Penguin

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• There is no word for time.
  Today we will
  not think to number another summer
  or watch its white bird into the ground.

  Anne Sexton

  Summer, Time, Thinking

  Anne Sexton, “The Road Back”

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• The silence is death.
  It comes each day with its shock
  to sit on my shoulder, a white bird,
  and peck at the black eyes
  and the vibrating red muscle
  of my mouth.

  Anne Sexton

  Eye, White, Bird

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.181, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
  We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fadeand flee;
  And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
  Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

  William Butler Yeats

  Stars, Twilight, Heart

  William Butler Yeats (2013). “Early Poems”, p.30, Courier Corporation

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• I am obsessed by the idea of silence. I went through an entire library studying art, artists and their critics, philosophers, too, on the meaning and significance of the color white. I dreamed of white birds and white bears. I thought about the white pages of my mother's journals. I became enthralled with John Cage and his work, 4'33”, his masterpiece of ambient sound. Rauschenberg, too. And then at some point I let go. What sticks to the soul is what gets placed on the page. Maybe that's the unknown part, the mystery, the power of the empty page.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Letting Go, Mother, Art

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