Best 1556 quotes in «bird quotes» category

Maggie threw her head back and laughed. 'So you're going to try...what? Birds of a Feather?' she quested. 'Of course not,' Kat said. 'Everyone knows the French government banned the importation of peacocks in 1987.

Magpie, n.: A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.

Mama used to tell us a story about a cicada sitting high in a tree. It chirps and drinks in dew, oblivious to the praying mantis behind it. The mantis arches up its front leg to stab the cicada, but it doesn't know an oriole perches behind it. The bird stretches out its neck to snap up the mantis for a midday meal, but its unaware of the boy who's come into the garden with a net. Three creatures—the cicada, the mantis and the oriole—all coveted gains without being aware of the greater and inescapable danger that was coming.

Man has learned to fly like the birds. Now all he has to do is work out how to do it quietly.

Man is a bird full of mud, I say aloud. And death looks on with a casual eye and scratches his anus.

Man is a bird without wings and a bird is a man without sorrow.

Man can now fly in the air like a bird, swim under the ocean like a fish, he can burrow into the ground like a mole. Now if only he could walk the earth like a man, this would be paradise.

Man studied birds for centuries, trying to learn how to make a machine to fly like them. He never did do the trick; his final success came when he broke away entirely and tried new methods.

Many images of animals, mammals or birds, resurface regularly in my narratives. They are not symbols, but chromatic benchmarks. For me, music has always been the perfect construction - an inaccessible ideal.

Marching onward, marching onward Marching to that lovely tune Marching onward, marching onward Happy as a bird in June Sliding onward, sliding onward Listen to that rag Hop and skip now do that slow, oh Do that slow drag Dance slowly, prance slowly Now you hear that pretty rag Dance slowly, prance slowly Now you do the real slow drag Waltz slowly, waltz slowly Listen to the ragtime Hop and skip Now do the slow, oh, do the slow drag

Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.

Marriage, as an institution, is as dead as the dodo bird.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

Marrying a woman for her beauty makes no more sense than eating a bird for its singing. But it's a common mistake nonetheless.

Maybe we are all prospective migrants. The lines of national borders on maps are artificial constructs, as unnatural to us as they are to birds flying overhead. Our first impulse is to ignore them.

Men have hitherto treated women like birds which have strayed down to them from the heights; as something more delicate, more fragile, more savage, stranger, sweeter, soulful--but as something which has to be caged up so that it shall not fly away.

Men say their pinnacles point to heaven. Why, so does every tree that buds, and every bird that rises as it sings. Men say their aisles are good for worship. Why, so is every mountain glen and rough sea-shore. But this they have of distinct and indisputable glory,--that their mighty walls were never raised, and never shall be, but by men who love and aid each other in their weakness.

More like some small, fierce bird of prey, something with a sharp bite. An owl perhaps, that speaks only when the rest of the world sleeps. Jenny will do well enough.

Mine, said the stone,mine is the hour.I crush the scissors,such is my power.Stronger than wishes,my power, alone.Mine, said the paper,mine are the wordsthat smother the stonewith imagined birds,reams of them, flownfrom the mind of the shaper.Mine, said the scissors,mine all the knivesgashing through paper'sethereal lives;nothing's so properas tattering wishes.As stone crushes scissors,as paper snuffs stoneand scissors cut paper,all end alone.So heap up your paperand scissor your wishesand uproot the stonefrom the top of the hill.They all end aloneas you will, you will.

More birds have adapted to a changing world than have failed. Very few have the narrow tolerance of the ivory-billed woodpecker or the Bachman's warbler.

More than fear of loving bears or birds bigger than cows, I fear pathless nights. How, I wonder, can I find you in the dark?

Morning has broken Like the first morning. Blackbird has spoken Like the first bird.

More hearts are breaking in this world of ours Than one would say. In distant villages And solitudes remote, where winds have wafted The barbed seeds of love, or birds of passage Scattered them in their flight, do they take root, And grow in silence, and in silence perish.

Most birds are geniuses. We had one that became a pet; he learned to talk, use tools and solve problems.

Most cats feel that bird-catching is their duty; the instinct goes back to prehistoric times. Amber keeps in practice by chasing moths.

Most of us live for the critic, and he lives on us. He doesn't sacrifice himself. He gets so much a line for writing a criticism. If the birds should read the newspapers, they would all take to changing their notes. The parrots would exchange with the nightingales, and what a farce it would be!

Most of the birds of the Old World can be found here, as Oman is on a strategic route for migrating birds

Movement is most of what a bird is. When they're dead, they're only feathers and air.

Must, bid the Morn awake! Sad Winter now declines, Each bird doth choose a mate; This day's Saint Valentine's. For that good bishop's sake Get up and let us see What beauty it shall be That Fortune us assigns.

Music criticism should be to musicians what ornithology is to the birds.

Mozart's mental grip never loosens; he never abandons himself to any one sense; even at his most ecstatic moments his mind is vigorous, alert, and on the wing. He dives unerringly on to his finest ideas like a bird of prey, and once an idea is seized he soars off again with an undiminished power.

Music is a bird's answer to the noise and heaviness of words. It puts the mind in a state of exhilarated speechlessness.

My first favourite book was Are You My Mother? A picture book about a lost bird. After that my favourites changed almost yearly. I loved everything by Roald Dahl, but my favourite was probably Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A librarian gave me a first edition of that book, which I treasure.

My birthday began with the water - Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name.

My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that "for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting.

My father... never required me to study anything, but he knew how to inspire in me a great desire for knowledge. Before learning to read, my greatest pleasure was to listen to passages from Buffon's natural history. I constantly requested him to read me the history of animals and birds.

My genius from a boy Has fluttered like a bird within my heart; But could not thus confined her power employ, Impatient to depart.

My face felt like my normal face, as if that part of me hadn’t transformed into a bird. [Fine, Sadie. Call me the Carter-headed chicken. Happy?]

My father said you can't make a living in birds, my relatives all went into business: bankers, stockbrokers. However, they eventually lost it all and died in wheelchairs. Sometimes you have to be a little aberrant.

My father used to say: Every bird is one bird, and every book is one book, and every bird and every book is one thing too, under the words and the feathers." He finished with a flourish, as though the meaning of this was self-evident.

My heart is like a singing bird.

My jaw dropped open. Holy crows...There's a couple of eagles mixed in there, Luke commented.And a few hawks, Aiden added.I rolled my eyes. Okay. Holy birds of prey! Is that better?Much, Aiden murmured.

My only complaint with 'Dickie' Bird is that he requires a degree of certainty that is almost neurotic; like the man who has to keep going to the front door to make certain that he's locked it.

My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow & rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.

My kids scotch tape worms to the sidewalk and watch the birds get hernias.

My roots are African. The birds I remember, the fruits I ate, the trees I climbed, they're African.

My room is like an antique shop, full of junk, and weird stuff. There's a big sword in there. And a taxidermy bird, and a couple of birdcages. And a lot of newspaper cuttings. I used to have a weird thing about cutting out morbid headlines from newspapers, and collecting them. I was fascinated with drowning, which is kind of strange.

My way is to seize an image the moment it has formed in my mind, to trap it as a bird and to pin it at once to canvas. Afterward I start to tame it, to master it. I bring it under control and I develop it.

My soul-bird loves my body-cage Only when it is kept fit, Pure and absolutely immaculate.

My soul was always so full of aspirations, that a God was a necessity to me. I was like a bird with an instinct of migration upon me, and a country to migrate to was as essential as it is to the bird