Quotes About Birds

The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds

Night was falling. Birds were singing. Birds were, it occurred to me to say, enacting a frantic celebration of day's end. They were manifesting as the earth's bright-colored nerve endings, the sun's descent urging them into activity, filling them individually with life nectar, the life nectar then being passed into the world, out of each beak, in the form of that bird's distinctive song, which was, in turn, an accident of beak shape, throat shape, breast configuration, brain chemistry: some birds blessed in voice, others cursed; some squeaking, others rapturous.

I pray to the birds. I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.

It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?

The only birds I know about are the duck and the dove and the quail, birds that you shoot. You're not really supposed to shoot cardinals. I don't know if I'd shoot this bird. It looks pretty mean. This bird might pull a gun out and shoot right back at you.

As I said in my last book, birds are mean. They're the only pet that, when they escape, the owners are relieved. You can tell a species is evil by doing this simple math. If my blond lab Molly was the size of T-Rex, that would just mean more kibble, more work for the gardener in the backyard, and a harder time moving her to my wife's side of the bed at night. If birds were the size of a T-Rex, the streets would be littered with human remains.

In time they sank and decayed, and nothing is left of them except an occasional impression in stones, in stones now found in deserts and on high mountain peaks. Birdless forests block the sun in uninhabited lands. Insects swirl in the air. And then, in a majestic, bloodthirsty, and mighty heave, the spinal columns of the vertebrates rise as monstrous lizards and fabulous creatures; dragons flinging their fearful bellows up to a steaming sky... Slowly they become birds, birds as light as undreamt dreams. The searing roars become birdsong, whimpering flutes on warm nights.

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

Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing, And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring; And modest dame Lurch, who is always at Church, Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

She told them simply and directly that the meadow was a place of peace and beauty, where indeed if one came to it in a quiet manner, the animals would not be disturbed; for there are lovely birds, and squirrels and field mice, and sometimes deer.

They chatter together like birds on Cypress Hill, but all they say is 'Live, live, live, live, live!' It's all they've learned, it's the only advice they can give.

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it.

Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the fish in the river and sea….There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent… his breath had brought every creature to life… God’s spirit is present within plant as well. The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on earth is ugly.

I have read somewhere that in the Emperor's palace at Byzantium was a tree made of gold and silver, and artificial birds that sang.

But look around at this world, how perfectly it's made. Flowers can't move, yet the insects come to them and spread their pollen. Trees can't move either, but birds and animals eat their fruit and carry their seeds far and wide.

We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds' feet is unknown. Here we go alone, and like it better so. Always to have sympathy, always to be accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable.

Out of the choked Devonian waters emerged sight and sound and the music that rolls invisible through the composer's brain. They are there still in the ooze along the tideline, though no one notices. The world is fixed, we say: fish in the sea, birds in the air. But in the mangrove swamps by the Niger, fish climb trees and ogle uneasy naturalists who try unsuccessfully to chase them back to the water. There are things still coming ashore.

Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. I’m inspired by a feather but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. It’s so elaborate. In fact I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women.

Animal substance seems to be the first food of all birds, even the granivorous tribes.

The natural/supernatural distinction itself, and the near-equation of 'supernatural' with 'superstition', are scarecrows that Enlightenment thought has erected in its fields to frighten away anyone following the historical argument where it leads. It is high time the birds learned to take no notice.

I wonder how, among the Fremont, mothers and daughters shared their world. Did they walk side by side along the lake edge? What stories did they tell while weaving strips of bulrush into baskets? How did daughters bury their mothers and exercise their grief? What were the secret rituals of women? I feel certain they must have been tied to birds.

I don't see [the jungle] so much erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It's just - Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and growing and just rotting away. Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain.

Me and a mate picked up two darling birds and they took us back to their flat. I went into the bedroom with my bird and she started getting undressed. I was that drunk I was standing there wondering how to get undressed without letting go of the award. I went to sit on the bed, missed it by four feet and ended up lying on the floor. I remember the bird looking down at me, and saying, ‘Some player of the year.’ Then I fell asleep. I woke up still clutching my award and staggered out of the flat. I hadn’t a bloody clue where I was.

The bird Gamayun was related to Alkonost and Sirin in some vague fashion-even the most casual observer would've noticed that all three of them were not entirely birds; they had the faces and breasts of women, severe but beautiful. And when their lips opened, they sand in women's voices, deep and rich and bittersweet.

If we had better hearing, and could discern the descants of sea birds, the rhythmic tympani of schools of mollusks, or even the distant harmonics of midges hanging over meadows in the sun, the combined sound might lift us off our feet.

How do you view God in a desert? There's two types of birds. There's vultures, and there's hummingbirds. One lives off dead carcasses, rotting meat. The other lives off the beautiful, sweet, nectar in a particular flower, on a particular desert plant, in the same desert. They both find what they're looking for. Do you know - take it all the way back into the Old Testament - and the Muslim and you, we actually serve the same God. Allah, to a Muslim; to us, Abba Father, God.

What can we writers learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.

The tree I had in the garden as a child, my beech tree, I used to climb up there and spend hours. I took my homework up there, my books, I went up there if I was sad, and it just felt very good to be up there among the green leaves and the birds and the sky.

You don’t have a soul, so you can’t be baptized. All animals are like that. I think it’s unfair and sometimes I don’t believe it. After all, what would heaven be without birds or dogs or horses? And what about trees and flowers? They don’t have souls either. Does that mean heaven looks like a cement parking lot? I suppose this is what the nuns call a theological problem.

It was Shakespeare's notion that on this day birds begin to couple; hence probably arose the custom of sending fancy love-billets.

Look, I guess it's natural, you're teenagers, its springtime,everyone's thoughts are turning to birds and bees and caterpillars and moths..... - Iggy

Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, to some good angel leave the rest; For Time will teach thee soon the truth, there are no birds in last year's nest!

Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. an alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.

It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about and with worms crawling through the damp earth and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms so different from each other and dependent on each other and so complex a manner have all been produced by laws acting around us.

Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.

It's time to make love, douse the glim; The fireflies twinkle and dim; The stars lean together Like birds of a feather, And the loin lies down with the limb.

Still I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing. For I sent the bath towel to the wash this morning, and omitted to put out another. I have no towel.

Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.

Go to bed when summers ends, what a good idea; wake up bright and early when birds announce its spring.

In the bare room under the old library on the hill in the town at the tip of the small peninsula on the cold island so far from everything else, I lived among strangers and birds.

As I stood alone and forsaken, and the power of the sea and the battle of the elements reminded me of my own nothingness, and on the other hand, the sure flight of the birds recalled the words spoken by Christ: Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father: then, all at once, I felt how great and how small I was; then did those two mighty forces, pride and humility, happily unite in friendship.

The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to the movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands... and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh.

From my earliest memories I was fascinated by animals. I would explore my backyard for insects and gaze at anthills until my elbows became sore. When I was 8, my mother bought me a book of North American birds and I've been keen on birdwatching since.

Birds sing even when the world is filled with sadness. I don't know why people can't do the same thing.

[Love] can be found in making little dresses for stuffed birds, or in a garden of tenderness like I have done - mixing writing, photography, and real spaces. There are all kinds of acts of love.

And now the lads and lasses, following the example of the birds, bill and coo together.

Futurity is impregnable to mortal ken: no prayer pierces through heaven's adamantine walls. Whether the birds fly right or left, whatever be the aspect of the stars, the book of nature is a maze, dreams are a lie, and every sign a falsehood.