BIRD QUOTES II

quotations about birds

Birds were created to record everything. They were not designed just to be beautiful jewels in the sky, but to serve as the eyes of heaven.

SUZY KASSEM

Rise Up and Salute the Sun


We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn't sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can't fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don't stand a chance. We're mired in gravity, we're earthbound. We're ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.

MARGARET ATWOOD

"The Tent"


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

ALEXANDER POPE

"Spring", Pastorals


Hark, by the bird's song ye may learn the nest.

ALFRED TENNYSON

The Marriage of Geraint


Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.

DAVID LETTERMAN

The Late Show with David Letterman


The bird avoids the nets that show too plainly.

OVID

Remediorum Amoris


Think of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"The Poet's Tale", Tales of a Wayside Inn


The shell must break before the bird can fly.

ALFRED TENNYSON

The Ancient Sage


A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

Don Quixote


You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

Don Quixote


The dear Lord God, of His glories weary--
Christ our Lord had the heart of a boy--
Made Him birds in a moment merry,
Bade them soar and sing for his joy.

KATHERINE TYNAN HINKSON

The Making of Birds


When the little birds sweetly did sing
Lauds to their Maker early i' the morning.

STEPHEN HAWES

Passetyme of Pleasure


A rare bird upon the earth.

JUVENAL

Satires


Gone to the world where birds are blest!
Where never cat glides o'er the green.

SAMUEL ROGERS

Epitaph on a Robin


Each bird loves to hear himself sing.

JAMES HOWELL

Proverbs


And as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

The Deserted Village


With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see
A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The Fountain


Many strange birds are on the air abroad,
Nor are all of one flight or of one force,
But each after his kind dissimilar.

GUINICELLI

Of Moderation and Tolerance


Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.

STEPHEN KING

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption


Heavenly bodies are nests of invisible birds.

DEJAN STOJANOVICH

The Creator