Avian Quotes & Sayings

Sun-struck,
stuck in mid tropic strut, it sometimes stands
as if considering how to cool avian plastic,
dive into the mown lagoon of lawn;
how take flight on dayglow flap-
doodle wings, no matter
if it is ball-bald going nowhere fast. — Joyce Thomas

For many years, the proposed influenza epicenter has been thought to be Southeast Asia. Farming practices there bring pigs, fowl, and people into close contact, allowing swine, avian, and human flu viruses to mix. The cycle is thought to be birds to pigs to humans. — Elizabeth T. Murane

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

It would be so much easier if I didnt have to make either choice. Picking neither and going back to the way I was just a few months previous would have been so much simpler. But something inside me had changed. There was no going back now. I couldnt live the same without them. — Keary Taylor

To be able to detect the outbreak of avian flu anywhere in the world is going to require a partnership of several countries that will share information and samples, but it is important to remember a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere. — Michael Burgess

Soft feathers cannot make a cruel bird kind — Munia Khan

The avian influenza found in mainland British Columbia poses no significant threat to human health. — John Clifford

This is a comment on fear. Today it's like 'They're going to bomb the New York subway and there's the avian flu and 50 million of us are going to die.' We wanted to make fun of that fear-based culture we've been plunged into. And Halloweens the perfect metaphor for fear. — Adam Gollner

You may be the only avian I've ever met who can look happier scrubbing floors than surrounded by luxury. — Kim Dare

My eyes flipped open at exactly six A.M. This was no avian fluttering of the lashes, no gentle blink toward consciousness. The awakening was mechanical. A spooky ventriloquist-dummy click of the lids: The world is black and then, showtime! 6-0-0 the clock said -in my face, first thing I saw. 6-0-0. It felt different. I rarely woke at such a rounded time. I was a man of jagged risings: 8:43, 11:51, 9:26. My life was alarmless. — Gillian Flynn

If by 'miracle kids' you mean innocent test-tube babies whose DNA was forcibly unraveled and merged with two percent avian genes, yeah, I guess that would be us," I said. "Because it's a miracle that we're not complete nut jobs and mutant disasters. — James Patterson

I am not going to speculate about the emotions that might be involved in avian infidelity. — Tim Birkhead

One of the most remarkable of all ornithological discoveries was the realisation that birds in temperate regions undergo enormous seasonal changes in their internal organs...Perhaps the most far-reaching discovery relating to these changes was the finding in the 1970s that parts of the brain also varied in size across the year...The centres in the avian brain that control the acquisition and delivery of song in male birds shrink at the end of the breeding season and grow again in the following year. — Tim Birkhead

Such avian silence is punctuated only by the occasional plunk of a trout sinking an ovipositioning daddy longlegs, and the hysterical cackle of a Mallard that finally gets last night's joke. — Bruce Beckham

The thing is, Max," he said, tons of heart-wringing emotion in his eyes, "you're even more special than I always told you. You see, you were created for a reason. Kept alive for a purpose, a special purpose." You mean besides seeing how well insane scientists could graft avian DNA into a human egg? He took a breath, looking deep into my eyes. I coldly shut down every good memory I had of him, every laugh we'd shared, every happy moment, every thought that he was like a dad to me. "Max, that reason, that purpose is: You are supposed to save the world." 62 Okay, I couldn't help it. My jaw dropped open. I shut it again quickly. Well. This would certainly give weight to my ongoing struggle to have the bathroom first in the morning. — James Patterson

In nature, disease-causing strains of avian influenza rarely spread far because the birds sicken and die before they can fly to spread it to others. — Michael Greger

It sucked, but it was way cool at the same time," Gazzy said. "I felt like the Blue Angels!"
"Yeah, except the blue Angels are an extremely well funded, well equipped, well trained, well fed, and no doubt squeaky-clean group of crack navy pilots," I said. "And we're a bunch of unfunded, unequipped, semitrained, not nearly well fed enough, and filthy mongrel avian-human hybrids. But other than that, it's exactly the same. — James Patterson

I'm not a spy, I'm an agent. There's a difference. I'm protecting you, not that you seem to be grateful."
"You're protecting me. How old are you anyway?"
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen? You can't even drive!"
"I can drive," I responded. It's just that certain officers say I may not drive."
"WTF?" she said. "We're going into Afghanistan, and they've sent a pre-driver."
Pre-driver? Was that even a word? And I was here specifically because Talya and Thorne were so young. "I thought you were sixteen," I said.
"I can drive," she responded haughtily. — Axel Avian

Jesus, you'd think the Black Death was sweeping the globe every three months or so ... ebola, SARS, avian flu. You know how many people made money on those scares? Shit, I made my first million on useless antiradiation pills during dirty bomb scares. — Max Brooks

Avian madness or deranged kiwi? — Magaly Guerrero

I was too abstract. I was not worthy of respect. There ... was a madness ... I was mad. I committed a heinous act, a heinous act ... " His words broke down into avian moans. "What did you do?" Isaac steeled himself to hear of some atrocity. "This language cannot express my crime. In my tongue ... " Yagharek stopped for a moment. "I will try to translate. In my tongue they said ... they were right ... I was guilty of choice-theft ... choice-theft in the second degree ... with utter disrespect. — China Mieville

Rising demand for animal products highlights microbiological risks, with animal-welfare measures sometimes creating new hazards. For example, open pens for poultry may increase the spread of communicable diseases like avian influenza. — Louise Fresco

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

Avian was home and made me feel secure and right. Everything felt okay when I was with Avian. But at the same time, he was still so much older than I was. And he would be tied to Eden in such a permanent way. — Keary Taylor

People like me really shouldn't be allowed to build a people house until we've managed to build a bird house that isn't immediately condemned as uninhabitable by the avian building department. — Robert Kroese

In New York, the European starling - now a ubiquitous avian pest from Alaska to Mexico - was introduced because someone thought the city would be more cultured if Central Park were home to each bird mentioned in Shakespeare. — Alan Weisman

The whole background of 'Avian' is rain. I was just playing with textures and realizing you can touch music. — Mac Miller

If anything was home in this wreck of a world it was Avian. — Keary Taylor

Fang looked at the newest bird kid. Dylan was an inch or two taller than he was, and somewhat heavier built, though he still had the long, lean look of a human-avian hybrid-you couldn't make bricks fly. — James Patterson

We'll always have each other. As long as we have that, it will always be Eden. — Keary Taylor

If ever there was an avian candidate for psychotherapy, the male blue heron is our nominee. — Carl Sagan

There is an overabundance of rational reasons to say no to factory-farmed meat: It is the No. 1 cause of global warming, it systematically forces tens of billions of animals to suffer in ways that would be illegal if they were dogs, it is a decisive factor in the development of swine and avian flus, and so on. — Jonathan Safran Foer

When Sabine parted her lips to argue, Lanthe said, "This baby bird's gotta fly, sis." "Great," Sabine drawled. "She's already speaking in avian metaphors. — Kresley Cole

The emergence and spread of virulent strains of avian influenza has been attributed by experts to the intensely overcrowded, unsanitary, and stressful conditions that often characterize large-scale factory farming in industrialized agriculture. — Michael Greger

Cipla has already developed a generic version, oseltamivir, which would be much cheaper than Tamiflu, the only available drug effective in treating avian flu. — Yusuf Hamied

What is important to me is there has been consensus and clarity, (and) much better coordination. We'll be much quicker to control avian influenza as a result. — David Nabarro

High levels of stress can lead to weakened immunity, rendering animals much more susceptible to disease. This makes the average poultry factory farm a hotbed for outbreaks of avian flu. — Michael Greger

You cant have both.
Avian was right. Even though I didnt know how to handle feeling like this, I knew what I had been doing was wrong. I couldn't have both. It was unfair to both of them. And it was tearing me into two people.
But how was I supposed to choose? I felt a tie to both of them, a tie so solid I wasnt sure that even I was strong enough to sever it. — Keary Taylor

I watch my loved ones weep with sorrow,
death's silent torment of no tomorrow.
I feel their hearts breaking, I sense their despair,
United in misery, the grief that they share.
How do I show that, I am not gone ...
but the essence of life's everlasting song
Why do they wee? Why do they cry?
I'm alive in the wind and I am soaring high.
I am sparkling light dancing on streams,
a moment of warmth in the fays of sunbeams.
The coolness of rain as it falls on your face,
the whisper of leaves as wind rushes with haste.
Eternal Song, a requiem by Avian of Celieria
from Crown of Crystal Flame by C.L. Wilson — C.L. Wilson

The pigeon had been unlucky. Ten birds had been on their way back to their Ilkley coop, flying in stolid, heavy formation; nine had returned home. The tenth, flying low over the moor at the base of this avian wedge, had plummeted soundlessly to the soil, its senses overwhelmed by the tendrils of consciousness which had enwrapped them.

When the pigeon awoke, moments later, all of the rudimentary universal constructs which defined pigeonness in its brain had been carefully swept away, save one. The entity didn't need birdseed; it didn't need a pigeon coup in Ilkley; but it needed to fly.

And it needed as much of the pigeon's cerebral activity as possible to focus on getting it to its desired location, which meant that for the first time in its life, this pigeon was reading roadsigns.

It was also experiencing emotions for which it was somewhat unprepared, most notably an insistent, imperative yearning for Leeds United. — Windsor Holden

Our avian brothers are back to roost on the first leg of their annual sojourn south. Why them and not us? Maybe it's because we humans are meant to be rooted in one spot. — Mitchell Burgess

He grabbed me with both hands and began pushing me backward.
I lost my balance. The ledge was at an angle, and it was covered with loose gravel. I was less than a foot from the edge.
It was at that very moment that the clouds parted. The September sun burst through. The entire world was illuminated.
Time shattered into moments.
I could see for a hundred miles in every direction.
I could see mountain peeks and pristine lakes. And I could somehow feel as well as see the never-ending drop that toyed with me, ruffling my hair, pulling at my back, one step behind me. — Axel Avian

A tractor-trailer overturned on U.S. 129 in Gainesville, Ga., "the poultry capital of the world," back in January. None of the drivers involved in the accident were hurt, but avian passengers in the trailer were killed, and Sarah Segal has asked the Georgia Department of Transportation for permission to a build a ten-foot-tall tombstone in their honor. The monument would read, "In memory of the dozens of terrified chickens who died as a result of a truck crash. Go Vegan." It would include an image of a chicken. PETA supports her initiative. Monty Python could not be reached for comment. — Anonymous

A bird, unable to fly, is still a bird; but a human unable to love is an inexpensive stone: like a piece of uric acid stone — Munia Khan

Youngest Brother, swan's wing,
where one arm should be, yours the shirt
of nettles short a sleeve
and me with no time left to finish --
I didn't mend you all the way back into man
though I managed for your brothers;
they flit again from court to playing-courts
to courting, while you station yourself,
wing folded from sight, avian eye
to the outside, no rebuke meant but love's.
Was it better then, the living on the water,
the taking to air...?

("Ever After," from the book 'The Poets' Grimm') — Debora Greger

You know Morse Code?" Avian asked as we walked up.
"My grandpa thought it was a fun game when I was little," West said as he rubbed his eyes again. "That's a scientist's version of fun for you. — Keary Taylor

They left Puonvangi at the 303rd in the company of a riotous party of Binlisi conventioneers. The Birilisi were an avian species and much given to excessive narcoticism; they and Puonvangi were guaranteed to get on. There was much fluttering. — Iain M. Banks

A gathering nimbus obscured the sun's light and out from the gathered clouds looped and coiled the guardian of the avian world. With a trail of inferno in her wake, it was Alicanto — Soroosh Shahrivar

What is a fleecy as a cloud,
As majestic and shimmering as the breaking dawn,
As gorgeous as the sun the sun is strong?
Why, it's ME!
Twilight, the Great Gray,
Tiger of the sky
Light of the Night, Most beautiful,
An avian delight.
I beam
I gleam
I'm a livin' flying dream.
Watch me roll off this cloud and pop on back.
This is flying.
I ain't no hack. — Kathryn Lasky

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic. — Barack Obama

Blood is everywhere..
Vultures take shelter beneath the tanks;
for the fumed sky is unsafe for their avian flight to prey on the Palestinian flesh. — Munia Khan