Bird Quotes:

The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.

- Abdul Kalam

topic: Motivation, Bird

A world without poetry and art would be too much like one without birds or flowers: bearable but a lot less enjoyable.

- Aberjhani

topic: Art, Flower, Bird

It is a matter of shame that in the morning the birds should be awake earlier than you.

- Abu Bakr

topic: Morning, Bird, Matter, Caliphs

It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.

- Aesop

topic: Being Yourself, Bird, Fine, Parrots, Fine Feathers

You drew a bird that was here, a kind of sweet chanticleer. But with a terrible fear that the cage couldn't tame

- Aimee Mann

topic: Sweet, Bird, Cages

I am like a tree in a forest. Birds come to the tree, they sit on its branches and eat its fruits. To the birds, the fruit may be sweet or sour or whatever. The birds say sweet or they say sour, but from the tree's point of view, this is just the chattering of birds.

- Ajahn Chah

topic: Sweet, Views, Bird

The United States is a big country but unfortunately it seems it has the brain of a little bird not befitting the greatness of the country.

- Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

source: "Iran's ex-president: U.S should show goodwill". Interview with Barbara Slavin, usatoday30.usatoday.com. February 6, 2005.

topic: Country, Greatness, Bird

Whoever says that all music is prohibited, let him also claim that the songs of birds are prohibited.

- Al-Ghazali

topic: Song, Bird, Claims, Birdsong

We attain freedom as we let go of whatever does not reflect our magnificence. A bird cannot fly high or far with a stone tied to its back. But release the impediment, and we are free to soar to unprecedented heights.

- Alan Cohen

topic: Letting Go, Starting Over, Bird, Unprecedented

All I know of birds to this date is that sparrows are the ones that are not pigeons.

- Alan Coren

topic: Bird, Sparrows, Pigeons

Archaeopteryx probably cannot tell us much about the early origins of feathers and flight in true protobirds because Archaeopteryx was, in the modern sense, a bird.

- Alan Feduccia

topic: Bird, Evolution, Flight

Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it's not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of 'paleobabble' is going to change that.

- Alan Feduccia

source: "Archaeopteryx: Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms" by V. Morell, February 5, 1993.

topic: Bird, Earth, Dinosaurs

On the contrary, there is a considerable body of evidence that these fossil traces, known as 'dino-fuzz', have nothing to do with bird feathers... I, and many others, do not find any credible evidence that those structures represent protofeathers.

- Alan Feduccia

topic: Bird, Body, Fossils

Instead of regarding birds as deriving from dinosaurs, Scansoriopteryx reinstates the validity of regarding them as a separate class uniquely avian and non-dinosaurian.

- Alan Feduccia

topic: Class, Bird, Dinosaurs

In missional churches, the baby birds have been pushed out of the nest and are learning to fly for themselves.

- Alan Hirsch

source: Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch (2011). “The Faith of Leap (Shapevine): Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage”, p.193, Baker Books

topic: Baby, Bird, Church, Missional Church

I don't mind being 65, but nobody is gonna tell me to come in at 5:30 to have the early bird special.

- Alan King

topic: Bird, Mind, Special, Early Bird

In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.

- Alan Perlis

topic: Technology, Bird, Worms, Early Bird

Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

- Alberto Moravia

topic: Song, Bird, Theme

Fortunately, however, birds don't understand pep talks. Not even St. Francis'. Just imagine, he went on, preaching sermons to perfectly good thrushes and goldfinches and chiff-chaffs! What presumption! Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut and let the birds preach to him?

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Bird, Mouths, Imagine, Pep, Pep Talk

You've built your homeyou've fledged your birdsyou've beaten the windwith your bonesyou've finished alonewhat no one began

- Alejandra Pizarnik

topic: Bird

Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.

- Alejandro Jodorowsky

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Thinking, Bird, Flying, Spiritual Wisdom, Bird Flying

Birds born in cages think that flying is a disease.

- Alejandro Jodorowsky

topic: Thinking, Bird, Flying

Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray, With joyous musick wake the dawning day.

- Alexander Pope

topic: Bird, Blooming, Joyous

It often happens that those are the best people whose characters have been most injured by slanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at.

- Alexander Pope

topic: Character, People, Bird

I am decidedly of the opinion that in very many instances we can trace such a necessary connexion, especially among birds, and often with more complete success than in the case which I have here attempted to explain.

- Alfred Russel Wallace

source: Alfred Russel Wallace (2013). “On the Organic Law of Change”, p.263, Harvard University Press

topic: Success, Bird, Opinion, Connexion

What birds can have their bills more peculiarly formed than the ibis, the spoonbill, and the heron?

- Alfred Russel Wallace

topic: Bird, Bills, Herons

I never think about actual things when I'm painting. I'm not thinking, "I'm going to put a person here, a tree here and a bird there." The beginning stage is always the sound. From that, slowly, stories come about based on what I'm reading or thinking at the time, but if I didn't have that sound I don't know what I would do.

- Ali Banisadr

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Reading, Thinking, Bird

With mimicry, with praises, with echoes, or with answers, the poets have all but outsung the bell. The inarticulate bell has found too much interpretation, too many rhymes professing to close with her inaccessible utterance, and to agree with her remote tongue. The bell, like the bird, is a musician pestered with literature.

- Alice Meynell

topic: Echoes, Bird, Too Much, Inarticulate, Mimicry

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.

- Ally Carter

topic: Government, Bird, Trying, Importation

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

- Alma Gluck

topic: Butterfly, Artist, Bird

But Nature too, shakes off her sleep today; By May's mild sun we see reviv'd her frame, Around my window Venus' birds proclaim, The month most cherish'd backwards bends his way!

- Alphonse de Lamartine

topic: Sleep, Bird, Months

Stuffing is evil. Stuffing adds mass, so it slows the cooking. That's evil because the longer the bird cooks, the drier it will be.

- Alton Brown

topic: Evil, Bird, Cooking

She flew like a bird, only faster.

- Alvin M. Johnston

topic: Airplane, Bird, Flew

Phoenix, n. The classical prototype of the modern 'small hot bird.'

- Ambrose Bierce

topic: Phoenix, Bird, Hot, Prototype

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

- Ambrose Bierce

topic: Bird, Might, Taught, Magpies

They say the first of my kind was Alasdair, a human raised by hawks. She learned the languages of birds and was gifted with their form.

- Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

source: Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (2010). “The Shapeshifters: The Kiesha'ra of the Den of Shadows”, p.1, Delacorte Press

topic: Bird, Hawks, Firsts

A bird is safe in its nest - but that is not what its wings are made for.

- Amit Ray

topic: Wings, Bird, Safe

When the Sun of compassion arises darkness evaporates and the singing birds come from nowhere.

- Amit Ray

topic: Compassion, Bird, Darkness, Singing Birds

In many ways, I regard Sharon and Arafat as birds of a feather.

- Amos Oz

topic: Bird, Way, Sharon, Arafat

A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he's just another bird drinking from your misery.

- Amy Tan

topic: Dream, Drinking, Bird

I prefer empty cages, Sabina, until I find a unique bird I once saw in my dreams.

- Anais Nin

topic: Dream, Unique, Bird

Honestly, I do not experience fear in the mountains. On the contraryI feel my shoulders straightening, squaring, like the birds as they straighten their wings. I enjoy the freedom and the altitude. It is only when I return to life below that I feel the world's weight on my shoulders.

- Anatoli Boukreev

source: Anatoli Boukreev, G. Weston DeWalt (2015). “The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest”, p.301, St. Martin's Griffin

topic: Wings, Bird, Mountain

Like a bird, when his cage is opened, stays on his perch, dazzled by freedom, the postponed traveler does not see that his cage, with its bars of anxiety, it is open.

- Andre Maurois

topic: Bird, Anxiety, Doe

Now let us sport us while we may; And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

- Andrew Marvell

topic: Sports, Time, Bird, Languish, Amorous

Like birds whose wings are broken, you live without direction!

- Andy Biersack

topic: Wings, Broken, Bird, Black Veil Brides, Bvb

Each time Stalker called you 'dove', I wanted to hit him. Because you're not a little gray bird... you're all the light in the world.

- Ann Aguirre

topic: Light, Bird, World

While I am watching the birds I believe I am comparatively immune from the assaults of life. The very indifference to humanity of these wild creatures affords me a certain safeguard. Where all else is dangerous, hostile and liable to inflict pain, they alone can do me no injury because, probably, they are not even aware of my existence. The birds are at once my refuge and my relaxation.

- Anna Kavan

topic: Pain, Believe, Bird, Wild Creatures

Are we not witnessing a strange tableau of survival whenever a bird alights on the head of a crocodile, bringing together the evolutionary offspring of Triassic and Jurassic?

- Anna Lee

topic: Bird, Survival, Together, Tableau

Okay. I picked up a movie to watch tonight. You can watch it with me if you like. It's a chick movie. Merri Lee said that means girls like it, not that there are small birds in it.

- Anne Bishop

topic: Mean Girls, Bird, Watches

Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

- Anne Lamott

topic: Writing, Bird, Buddy

Butterflies and birds are like one perfect teaspoon of creation.

- Anne Lamott

topic: Butterfly, Perfect, Bird, Teaspoons

Now we're like planets, holding to each other from a great distance. [...] Now we're hundreds of miles apart, our short arms keep us lonely, no one hears what's in my head. [...] It's March, even the birds don't know what to do with themselves.

- Anne Michaels

topic: Lonely, Distance, Bird, Miles Apart

I hear the birds singing. Listen. I hear them in their cage. The others-all our kind who know of her-they think of her as heartless, but she wasn't heartless. She was only aware of things which I didn't learn till so many decades had passed. She knew secrets that only suffering can teach...

- Anne Rice

topic: Thinking, Bird, Heartless

Blackbirds are the cellos of the deep farms.

- Anne Stevenson

source: 'Green Mountain, Black Mountain' (1982)

topic: Bird, Blackbirds, Farms

I can't understand why the front pages of newspapers can cover bird flu and swine flu and everybody is up in arms about that and we still haven't really woken up to the fact that so many women in sub-Saharan Africa - 60 percent of people in - infected with HIV are women.

- Annie Lennox

topic: People, Bird, Hiv, Swine, Sub Saharan Africa

How do you catch a beautiful bird without killing it? By becoming the sky.

- Antero Alli

topic: Beautiful, Sky, Bird, Killing It

Blessed tree and blessed birds, that were to be neither saved nor damned.

- Anthony Burgess

topic: Blessed, Bird, Tree

It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now.

- Anthony Burgess

topic: Wine, Bird, Heaven, Spun, Clockwork

The birds fly in the wrong places and there are too many stars in the sky.

- Anthony Horowitz

topic: Stars, Sky, Bird, Stars In The Sky

My ex-girlfriend owned a parakeet…oh my god, that f**king thing would never shut up. But the bird was cool.

- Anthony Jeselnik

topic: Girlfriend, Kings, Bird, Ex Girlfriend, Parakeets

Damned money! Alas! How many religious did it blind! How many cloistered religious did it deceive! Money is the 'droppings of birds' that blinded the eyes of Tobit.

- Anthony of Padua

topic: Religious, Eye, Bird

I believe that for his escape he took advantage of the migration of a flock of wild birds.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

topic: Believe, Bird, Migration, Wild Birds

Even when a bird walks, one feels it has wings.

- Antoine-Marin Lemierre

topic: Wings, Bird, Walks

Even when the bird walks we see that it has wings.

- Antoine-Marin Lemierre

topic: Wings, Bird, Walks

When a person hasn't in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog's bark in every sound.

- Anton Chekhov

topic: Dog, Order, Bird, External Influences

Imagine, for example, birds. When they look out at the world, they have a sense that they are alive. If they are in pain, they can do something about it. If they have hunger or thirst, they can satisfy that. It's this basic feeling that there is life ticking away inside of you.

- Antonio Damasio

topic: Pain, Bird, Feelings

The power that makes grass grow, fruit ripen, and guides the bird in flight is in us all.

- Anzia Yezierska

source: Anzia Yezierska (1950). “Red ribbon on a white horse”

topic: Bird, Fruit, Flight, Birds In Flight

A poem should be wordless As the flight of birds.

- Archibald MacLeish

source: 'Ars Poetica' (1926)

topic: Bird, Flight, Should

What the men like best are what there's the least sense in, dresses you can't sit down in, that won't stand a lot of action, that hobble you and truss you up and slow you down and fix it so you can't hardly breathe, till finally you're off in one corner, like a bird in a cage, not cluttering up the busy paths in life that men has got to use. That's the styles they really like!

- Ardyth Kennelly

topic: Men, Clothes, Bird

I wouldn't steal anything because stealing is wrong. If I had to, I'd steal a caged bird and set it free.

- Arthur Darvill

topic: Bird, Caged Birds, Stealing, Caged

Her beauty was sold for an old man's gold. She's a bird in a gilded cage.

- Arthur J. Lamb

source: "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" (song) (1900)

topic: Men, Bird, Gold, Gilded

The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.

- Arthur Miller

source: Harper's, Aug. 1958

topic: Home, Play, Bird, Roost

By going and coming, a bird weaves its nest.

- Ashanti

topic: Bird, Nests, Practicality

Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs.

- Audre Lorde

topic: Feet, Bird, Tree

Every minute of his life since then has been marked by her absence, every action has lacked dimension because she is not there to measure against. And when I was young I didn't understand, but now, I know, how absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird.

- Audrey Niffenegger

topic: Dark, Bird, Dimensions

absence can be present, like a damaged nerve, like a dark bird

- Audrey Niffenegger

topic: Dark, Bird, Nerves

Instead of watching the bird as it flies above our heads, we chase his shadow along the ground; and, finding we cannot grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing.

- Augustus William Hare

topic: Bird, Shadow, Findings

We found the future, like birds fly into windows.

- Austin Kleon

topic: Bird, Chaos, Window

Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.

- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

source: Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2008). “Infidel”, p.382, Simon and Schuster

topic: Doors, Bird, Islam, Infidel, Caged Birds

Birds fly and fish swim and I do this.

- B.J. Penn

topic: Mma, Bird, Swim

The Yogi conquers the body by the practice of asanas, making the body a fit vehicle for the spirit. The Yogi knows that it is a necessary vehicle for the spirit, for a soul without a body is like a bird deprived of its power to fly.

- B.K.S. Iyengar

topic: Practice, Bird, Soul

No longer was light analogous to the discharge of a blunderbuss, but rather to the pulsating flight of birds.

- Banesh Hoffmann

source: Banesh Hoffmann (1959). “The Strange Story of the Quantum: An Account for the General Reader of the Growth of the Ideas Underlying Our Present Atomic Knowledge”, p.7, Courier Corporation

topic: Light, Bird, Flight

Thanks for this day, for all birds safe in their nests, for whatever this is, for life.

- Barbara Kingsolver

source: Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “Prodigal Summer”, p.215, Faber & Faber

topic: Bird, Safe, Nests

How strange to read of a place in a book, and then stand on it, listen to the birds sing, and spit on the cobbles if you want.

- Barbara Kingsolver

topic: Book, Bird, Want

In exchange for his first taste of powdered milk, Pascal showed me a tree we could climb to find a bird's nest. After we handled and examined the pink-skinned baby birds, he popped one of them into his mouth like a jujube. It seemed to please him a lot. He offered a baby bird to me, pantomiming that I should eat it. I understood perfectly well what he meant, but I refused. He did not seem disappointed to have to eat the whole brood himself.

- Barbara Kingsolver

topic: Baby, Bird, Tree

Aesthetics is to artists as ornithology is to birds.

- Barnett Newman

topic: Artist, Bird, Ornithology, Aesthetics

Aesthetics is for the artist like ornithology is for the birds.

- Barnett Newman

topic: Art, Bird, Ornithology, Aesthetics

How helpless we are, like netted birds, when we are caught by desire!

- Belva Plain

source: Belva Plain (2009). “Evergreen”, p.296, Dell

topic: Bird, Desire, Caught

Poets are far rarer birds than kings.

- Ben Jonson

topic: Kings, Bird, Poet

Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.

- Bernard Meltzer

topic: Giving, Bird, Joy, Joy To The World, Using Your Talents

In Nature there is no dirt, everything is in the right condition; the swamp and the worm, as well as the grass and the bird,-all is there for itself.

- Berthold Auerbach

topic: Nature, Bird, Swamps

I love to swim in the nude and roam around the house in the nude. You're just as free as a bird!

- Bettie Page

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: House, Bird, Swim

If it wasn't for hustlers, gangsters & gamblers there'd be no Jazz. Wasn't middle~class who said Let's go hear Bird tonight.

- Betty Carter

topic: Music, Bird, Tonight

Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country.

- Bill Ayers

topic: Country, America, Bird

The first time I came across the birds and the bees in actual flight, I couldn't identify the formation.

- Bill Cosby

topic: Sex, Humorous, Bird

Doug Christie, what skill, what strenght, what power, what quickness. The visionof Magic Johnson, the athletisicm of Michael Jordan, the toughness of larry Bird. Dough Christie has it all

- Bill Walton

topic: Skills, Bird, Strenght, Christie, Quickness

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her, barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor. She will look in at me with her thin arms extended, offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.

- Billy Collins

source: Billy Collins (2012). “Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes”, p.70, Pan Macmillan

topic: Light, Offering, Bird, Birdsong, Barefoot

The thing that excites me, and the thing that excited me about Twitter, is the idea of a flock of birds moving around an object in flight.

- Biz Stone

topic: Moving, Ideas, Bird

Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.

- Black Elk

topic: Circles, Bird, Religion, Cherokee, Native American Dream

It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.

- Black Elk

topic: Depression, Roots, Bird, Depression Inspirational, Native American Proverbs

Everyone thinks I'm a wimp and even my own band hates me. Oh, well. I guess I'll just flip 'em the bird!

- Black Francis

topic: Hate, Thinking, Bird

Ever make mistakes in life? Let's make them birds. Yeah, they're birds now.

- Bob Ross

topic: Mistake, Bird, Yeah

Like birds landing on a tree top together, and then dispersing, we are together for a very short time, so it makes sense to live in harmony, in unconditional friendship.

- Bokar Rinpoche

topic: Love, Bird, Tree, Landing, Tree Tops

How can I be in two places at once, unless I were a bird?

- Boyle Roche

topic: Two, Bird

A bird in the hand is a certainty, but a bird in the bush may sing.

- Bret Harte

topic: Hands, Bird, May

Empty Spaces:After his father died he carried his life more gently & left an empty space for the birds & other creatures.

- Brian Andreas

topic: Father, Space, Bird, Father Died

I don't, for the record, have a Tweety Bird fetish.

- Brian Lamb

topic: Bird, Tweety Bird, Records, Fetish

Feminism is not a fad. It's not like Angry Birds. Although it does involve a lot of angry birds. Bad example.

- Bridget Christie

topic: Bird, Feminism, Example, Angry Birds

Although birds coexist with us on this eroded planet, they live independently of us with a self-sufficiency that is almost a rebuke. In the world of birds a symposium on the purpose of life would be inconceivable. They do not need it. We are not that self-reliant. We are the ones who have lost our way.

- Brooks Atkinson

topic: Nature, Self, Bird, Symposium, Self Reliant

Assumptions are unopened windows that foolish birds fly into, and their broken bodies are evidence gathered too late.

- Bryan Davis

source: Bryan Davis (2012). “Liberator”, p.141, Zondervan

topic: Broken, Bird, Too Late

I call wild ***** together like Cyrus, And knock off more birds than the West Nile Virus.

- Bumpy Knuckles

topic: Rap, Hip Hop, Bird

People habitat has to take priority over bird habitat.

- Byron Dorgan

topic: People, Priorities, Bird

A large proportion of mankind, like pigeons and partridges, on reaching maturity, having passed through a period of playfulness or promiscuity, establish what they hope and expect will be a permanent and fertile mating relationship. This we call marriage.

- C. D. Darlington

source: Genetics and Man Ch. 16

topic: Maturity, Bird, Pigeons

You're attracted to him," Kylie said. "And don't try to deny it. You've even admitted that much to me." "Okay, I won't deny that. He's got that whole hard body, vampire magnetism going for him. But when I was young, I had a crush on Big Bird. That wouldn't have worked out either.

- C.C. Hunter

topic: Crush, Bird, Vampire, Big Bird, Magnetism

I love puffins. They are small, round gothic birds, and their babies are called pufflings.

- Caitlin Moran

topic: Baby, Bird, Puffins

Not all birds can fly. What separates the flyers from the walkers is the ability to take off.

- Carl Sagan

topic: Bird, Aviation, Flyers

There have been as many varieties of socialists as there are wild birds that fly in the woods and sometimes go up and on through the clouds.

- Carl Sandburg

topic: Clouds, Bird, Woods, Wild Birds

The sound of birds stops the noise in my mind.

- Carly Simon

topic: Bird, Mind, Sound

Watching birds has become part of my daily meditation affirming my connection to the earth body.

- Carol P. Christ

topic: Meditation, Bird, Connections, Daily Meditation, Affirming

I'll wire the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers and give them the number stamped on the bird's leg ring.

- Carolyn Keene

source: Carolyn Keene (1960). “Nancy Drew 10: Password to Larkspur Lane”, p.7, Penguin

topic: Numbers, Giving, Bird

Koschei, Koschei,” she whispered. “What would I have been if I had never seen the birds? I am no one; I am nothing. I am a blank paper on which you and your magic wrote a girl. Just the kind of girl you wanted, all hungry and hurt and needing. A machine for loving you. Nothing in me was not made by you.

- Catherynne M. Valente

topic: Girl, Hurt, Bird

Better a sparrow, living or dead, than no birdsong at all.

- Catullus

topic: Bird, Sparrows, Birdsong

Poison or elixir, narcotic or aphrodisiac, whatever it was, this flower, relic of a day in the life of an accidental writer, an inadvertent counterfeiter leaving his traces in code, the birds were coming to try it, performing a dance for no one and flying up toward the moon.

- Cesar Aira

topic: Flower, Moon, Bird, Elixir

A few birds flew out from the mountains and glided for a while without sound. Standing out against the sky on high slopes beyond a range of low hills, they saw an endless herd of deer, rendered mute by distance. The landscape was reminiscent of a cardboard cutout, but on a huge scale, which gave the impression they were the ones who had become miniatures...All three of them were equally lost.

- Cesar Aira

source: César Aira (2013). “The Hare”, p.239, New Directions Publishing

topic: Distance, Sky, Bird

I will drop into your chest like a vegetal ambrosia. I will be the grain that regenerates the cruelly plowed furrow. Poetry will be born of our intimate union. A god we shall create together, and we shall soar heavenward like sunbeams, perfumes, butterflies, birds, and all winged things.

- Charles Baudelaire

topic: Butterfly, Bird, Together, Ambrosia

Being alive is gardening and cooking and birds and green and blue, at the very least.

- Charles Bowden

source: "The Bone Garden of Desire" by Charles Bowden, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

topic: Blue, Bird, Cooking

I don't know if this is true to you but for me sometimes it gets so bad that anything else say like looking at a bird on an overhead power line seems as great as a Beethoven symphony. then you forget it and you're back again.

- Charles Bukowski

topic: Symphony, Bird, Lines, Power Lines

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.

- Charles Darwin

topic: Struggle, Bird, Mind, Gladness, Origin Of Species

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

- Charles Frazier

source: Charles Frazier (2007). “Cold Mountain: A Novel”, p.279, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

topic: Mistake, Bird, Singing, Marrying, Cold Mountain

But, as old Swedish legends say, Of all the birds upon that day, The swallow felt the deepest grief, And longed to give her Lord relief, And chirped when any near would come. Hugswala swala swal honom! Meaning, as they who tell it deem, Oh, cool, oh, cool and comfort Him!

- Charles Godfrey Leland

source: Charles Godfrey Leland (1872). “The Music-lesson of Confucius, and Other Poems”, p.66

topic: Grief, Giving, Bird, Swedish

I've been thinking... Maybe you're a mockingbird... Mockingbirds imitate the songs of other birds... No, I've never heard of any copyright problems.

- Charles M. Schulz

topic: Song, Thinking, Bird, Mockingbird

The early bird gets the worm but the late bird doesn't even get the late worm.

- Charles M. Schulz

topic: Bird, Worms, Early Bird

It (jazz) isn't like it used to be. The guys aren't together. They're all separated. Individuals now. Bird was a symbol. It was a clique, a clique of people. Who all believed in one thing: gettin' high. And playin'.

- Charles Mingus

topic: People, Guy, Bird

So say it loud and let it ring We are all a part of everything The future, present and the past Fly on proud bird You're free at last

- Charlie Daniels

topic: Death, Past, Bird, Love And Death

Jane, be still; don't struggle so like a wild, frantic bird, that is rending its own plumage in its desperation." "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.

- Charlotte Bronte

source: Charlotte Bronte (2004). “Jane Eyre”, p.130, Variocity

topic: Struggle, Independent, Bird, Self Determination, Strong Independent Women

I'm lucky to have very good genes. My mother was so tiny she was almost bird-like, and my father was tall and lean. Both lived until their early 80s.

- Cherie Lunghi

topic: Mother, Father, Bird, Good Genes

Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge.

- Chiune Sugihara

topic: Bird, Hunters, Refuge

Good and bad, happy and sad, all thoughts vanish into emptiness like the imprint of a bird in the sky.

- Chogyam Trungpa

topic: Sky, Bird, Emptiness

An owl is the wisest of all birds because the more it sees the the less it talks.

- Christie Watson

topic: Bird, Owl, Wisest

My heart is like a singing bird.

- Christina Rossetti

topic: Memorable, Heart, Bird

It's surely summer. for there's a swallow: Come one swallow, his mate will follow, The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.

- Christina Rossetti

topic: Summer, Race, Bird

I read, for the first time, of the Carolina Parakeet-a North American parakeet whose green, yellow and reddish-orange plumage appeared vivacious and altogether quite wonderful. As stunning as I found the hawk-chased conures, this bird astounded me even more. That the Carolina Parakeet was extinct simply added to my amazement.

- Christopher Cokinos

source: Christopher Cokinos (2009). “Hope Is the Thing With Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds”, p.12, Penguin

topic: Yellow, Orange, Bird, Vivacious, Parakeets

We hear the ambient noise of children singing. We hear lions and tigers roar. Hyenas laugh. Some jungle bird or howler monkey declares its existence, screeching a maniac's gibberish. Our entire world, always doing battle against the silence and obscurity of death.

- Chuck Palahniuk

topic: Children, Laughing, Bird, Ambient, Hyenas

The next chamber is full of songbirds, if I remember right. Their music is like turtleweed. It will put you to sleep if you listen to it. They sleep most of the time, so the best thing is to pass through without waking them up. If they do awaken, then you must sing loud enough to drown out their music." "Great," Han said. "Whose idea was that?" "It seemed like a good idea at the time," Crow said. "I was an excellent singer.

- Cinda Williams Chima

topic: Sleep, Ideas, Bird, Songbirds

Opportunity is a bird that never perches.

- Claude Maxwell MacDonald

topic: Opportunity, Bird, Missing Opportunity, Life Opportunity, Missed Opportunity

The shivering birds beneath the eaves Have sheltered for the night.

- Claude McKay

source: Claude McKay (2012). “Selected Poems”, p.49, Courier Corporation

topic: Night, Bird

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

- Claude Monet

topic: Art, Bird, Way

About one thing the Englishman has a particularly strict code. If a bird says Cluk bik bik bik bik and caw you may kill it, eat it or ask Fortnums to pickle it in Napoleon brandy with wild strawberries. If it says tweet it is a dear and precious friend and you'd better lay off it if you want to remain a member of Boodles.

- Clement Freud

topic: Bird, Insulting, May, Wild Strawberries, Brandy

I live in Topanga Canyon, which is like a faux-rustic enclave in Los Angeles. I love the sounds of all the critters outside - the frogs, owls, crickets, and birds. Some of the birds around here are pretty accomplished musicians. You can learn a lot from them.

- Cliff Martinez

topic: Bird, Owl, Musician, Rustic, Faux

In the under-wood and the over-wood there is murmur and trill this day, For every bird is in lyric mood, And the wind will have its way.

- Clinton Scollard

source: Clinton Scollard (1916). “Ballads, Patriotic & Romantic”

topic: Inspirational, Wind, Bird, Trill

I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.

- Coco Chanel

topic: Love, Women, Bird, Elegant Woman

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it; let's do it, let's fall in love.

- Cole Porter

source: "Let's Do It" (song) (1954). These words were added to the original 1928 song, replacing lines including "Chinks do it, Japs do it" because Porter realized that those lyrics were offensive.

topic: I Love You, Falling In Love, Bird

In The Touch, the love scenes are the same as they were in The Thorn Birds or anything else Ive ever written. I find a way of saying that either it was heaven or hell but in a way that still leaves room for the reader to use their own imagination.

- Colleen McCullough

topic: Imagination, Bird, Heaven, Heaven Or Hell

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it.

- Colleen McCullough

topic: Law, Bird, Singing

I've read hundreds of cookbooks. For my money, they are the bird.

- Colonel Sanders

source: "KFC dishes up Colonel Sanders' autobiography for free" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. May 31, 2012.

topic: Bird, Cookbook, Apple Pie

The freedom of birds is an insult to me.

- Cormac McCarthy

topic: Bird, Insult

What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.

- Corrie Ten Boom

topic: Prayer, Wings, Bird

Bird Poop in the mouth is always a surprise.

- Craig Benzine

topic: Bird, Poop, Mouths

I think the birds in the area are dying laughing watching me try not to crash.

- Cynthia Hand

source: Cynthia Hand (2011). “Unearthly”, p.152, Egmont UK

topic: Thinking, Laughing, Bird

You'll have a lot more respect for a bird after you try making a nest.

- Cynthia Lewis

topic: Bird, Trying, Nests

The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into lustre.

- D. H. Lawrence

topic: Spring, Self, Bird

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

- D. H. Lawrence

topic: Life, Sorry, Bird, Wild Things, Self Pity

The true self is not aware that it is a self. A bird, as it sings, sings itself. But not according to a picture. It has no idea of itself.

- D. H. Lawrence

topic: Self, Ideas, Bird

Life, according to Zen, ought to be lived as a bird flies through the air, or as a fish swims in the water.

- D.T. Suzuki

topic: Air, Water, Bird

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.

- Dale Carnegie

topic: Happiness, Horse, Bird, Great Happiness

All birds need to fly are the right-shaped wings, the right pressure and the right angle.

- Daniel Bernoulli

topic: Wings, Bird, Needs

If worms carried pistols, birds wouldn't eat 'em.

- Darrell Royal

topic: Bird, Ems, Pistols

Everybody's a bird, locked up in a pretty cage. Sometimes you fly to a slightly bigger one, but you never quite have the courage to abandon captivity completely.

- Dave McKean

topic: Bird, Captivity, Never Quit

I sit in my tree I sing like the birds My beak is my pen My songs are my poems.

- David Almond

topic: Song, Bird, Tree, Beaks

What are you?" I whispered. He shrugged again. "Something," he said. "Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel." He laughed. "Something like that.

- David Almond

topic: Angel, Bird, Like You

I don't want a be bird because birds get attacked too much. But it would be cool to fly.

- David Archuleta

topic: Bird, Would Be, Want

As a body in a world, here is our choice: we can be more loving or less loving. That's it. We can relax as the entire moment's show of love's swirl, feeling open as all--a vicious rainstorm, tweeting birds, our lover's lips, a sense of worthlessness-- or we can close to some aspect of experience, pulling away as if we were separate.

- David Deida

topic: Bird, Choices, Feelings, Swirls, Pulling Away

The influenza pandemic of 1918 may well be the greatest scourge ever to afflict humanity, exacting a death toll greater than all the wars of the 20th Century combined. The virus that wreaked this havoc apparently developed in birds, and then jumped to people. In other words, it was avian flu.

- David L. Katz

topic: War, People, Bird, Influenza

On consideration, it is not surprising that Darwin's finches should recognize their own kind primarily by beak characters. The beak is the only prominent specific distinction, and it features conspicuously both in attacking behaviour, when the birds face each other and grip beaks, and also in courtship, when food is passed from the beak of the male to the beak of the female. Hence though the beak differences are primarily correlated with differences in food, secondarily they serve as specific recognition marks, and the birds have evolved behaviour patterns to this end.

- David Lack

source: David Lack (1947). “Darwin's Finches”, p.54, CUP Archive

topic: Character, Differences, Bird, Beaks, Finches

It has been argued that dinosaurs did not die out, but just evolved wings and flew away. At a certain level, this reasoning is sound.... Birds, as a group, did descend from dinosaurs and ... all 8,600 species of birds living today carry some inheritance from their reptilian ancestors.

- David M. Raup

topic: Wings, Bird, Sound

Detecting and culling infected birds is still the key, and for that we have to compensate the owners of chicken whose flocks are killed. And we have to limit interaction between humans and birds, which is a huge challenge within an environment where people are used to living very close to their chickens.

- David Nabarro

topic: Keys, People, Bird, Culling

We are watching very closely to see how the disease associated with bird flu, when it hits humans, is evolving.

- David Nabarro

topic: Bird, Disease, Flu, Bird Flu

Birds are, especially canaries, are super sensitive to hydrogen sulfide and sour gas.

- David Suzuki

topic: Bird, Hydrogen, Sensitive, Canaries

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

- David Whyte

topic: Bird, Waiting, Cooking

The only thing we can't buy more of is time." she said. "And dodo birds. We can't buy any more of them. they're extinct. And dinosaurs.

- Dean Koontz

topic: Bird, Dinosaurs, Said, Dodo Bird

He was sure that he was not the cause of the abrupt silence. His passage through the canyon had not previously disturbed either birds or cicadas. Something was out there. An intruder of which the ordinary forest creatures clearly did not approve. He took a deep breath and held it again, straining to hear the slightest movement in the woods. This time he detected the rustle of brush, a snapping twig, the soft crunch of dry leaves-and the unnervingly peculiar, heavy, ragged breathing of something big.

- Dean Koontz

topic: Breathing, Silence, Bird, Snapping, Intruders

To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature - the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy grades, the water, the soil, the air itself.

- Dee Brown

topic: Air, Water, Bird

There's an unseen force which lets birds know when you've just washed your car.

- Denis Norden

source: Frank Muir, Denis Norden (1984). “The utterly ultimate 'My word!' collection”, Methuen Pub Ltd

topic: Car, Bird, Unseen, Unseen Forces

Larry Bird is overrated in a lot of areas. ... Why does he get so much publicity? Because he's white. You never hear about a black player being the greatest.

- Dennis Rodman

topic: Player, White, Bird

So we live in an accelerating possibility curve.  Perhaps we can't control it, but we can learn to ride it like a surfer on a wave or a bird on a thermal, to use its power to take us where we want to go - to live in uncertainty and yet act with confidence.

- Dewitt Jones

topic: Curves, Bird, Use, Surfer, Thermal

This wife you have, Bird said at last, deeply contemplative, did you pay a great deal for her? She cost me almost everything I had, he said, with a wry tone that made the others laugh. But worth it.

- Diana Gabaldon

topic: Laughing, Wife, Bird, Contemplative, Wry

Once you get the kids raised and the mortgage paid off and accomplish what you wanted to do in life, there's a great feeling of: 'Hey, I'm free as a bird.'

- Dick Van Dyke

topic: Kids, Bird, Feelings, Paid Off

I am not an early bird. I go to bed normally between midnight and 1 oclock, so it is understandable that I cannot be an early bird. I wake up around 9 oclock.

- Dieter Rams

topic: Bird, Bed, Midnight, Early Bird

If we allow our thoughts to arise and dissolve by themselves, they will pass through our mind as a bird flies through the sky, without leaving a trace.

- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

topic: Sky, Bird, Leaving

A wonderful bird is the pelican His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week, But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

- Dixon Lanier Merritt

topic: Animal, Bird, Humanity

You can't steal a gift. Bird [Charlie Parker] gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it.

- Dizzy Gillespie

topic: Bird, World, Stealing

When birds look into houses, what impossible worlds they see.

- Don DeLillo

topic: House, Bird, Looks

I want to sleep like the birds then wake to write you again without hope that you read me.

- Donald Hall

topic: Writing, Sleep, Bird, Want To Sleep

Birds are so much wiser than we! A robin builds a nest for robins. A seagull builds a nest for seagulls. They don't copy each other - or build themselves nests as described in The Birds' Decorating Magazine.

- Dorothy Draper

topic: Design, Bird, Robins, Seagull

He learned to communicate with birds and discovered their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with windspeed, wingspans, power-to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries.

- Douglas Adams

topic: Bird, Berries, Weight

The new world lies before her eyes like an opened chest of treasure, a flock of birds over Africa, a thousand TVs all playing at once.

- Douglas Coupland

topic: Lying, Eye, Bird

Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain.

- Douglas Coupland

topic: Bird, Miracle, May

Because there is no meaning to be found in the arbitrary nature of things., It's all random. Just as space is blue. And birds fly through it.

- Douglas Kennedy

source: Douglas Kennedy (2010). “Leaving the World: A Novel”, p.18, Simon and Schuster

topic: Space, Blue, Bird

You have to believe in happiness, or happiness never comes Ah, that's the reason a bird can sing - On his darkest day he believes in spring.

- Douglas Malloch

topic: Spring, Believe, Bird

My shoe is off. My foot is cold. I have a bird I like to hold.

- Dr. Seuss

topic: Shoes, Feet, Bird