Birds And Branches Quotes & Sayings

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

It is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Matthew 13:31 31. Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Matthew 13:32 32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. — The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

I felt him there with me. The real David. My David.
David, you are still here. Alive. Alive in me.
Alive in the galaxy.
Alive in the stars.
Alive in the sky.
Alive in the sea.
Alive in the palm trees.
Alive in feathers.
Alive in birds.
Alive in the mountains.
Alive in the coyotes.
Alive in books.
Alive in sound.
Alive in mom.
Alive in dad.
Alive in Bobby.
Alive in me.
Alive in soil.
Alive in branches.
Alive in fossils.
Alive in tongues.
Alive in eyes.
Alive in cries.
Alive in bodies.
Alive in past, present and future.
Alive forever. — Kelly Easton

Things change when you learn to loosen your grip. I think one way and the future is desperate. I think another way everything is in sight. Trees bend so branches don't have to break. We mend the wounds of our last mistake ... I live one way holding onto the fence post. I live another way sliding off into space. Each life is loosely assembled ... Birds swim, fish do fly. Proud man begins to cry. Birds swim, fish do fly. Things change, so why can't I? — Tim Finn

One could say that Hopkins practiced transubstantiation in every poem. By mysterious talent, he changed plain element into reality sublime. He encountered a jumble of weather, birds, trees, branches, waters, blooms, dewdrops, candle flames, prayers, then instressed them and, delighted, wrote in his journal, 'Chance left free toact falls into an order. — Margaret R. Ellsberg

On the seventh day of the Seventh-month, in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree."
Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever. — Bai Juyi

In what is now known as Bodh Gaya ... a Buddhist temple stands beside an ancient pipal, descended from that bodhi tree, or "enlightenment tree," and I watched the rising of the morning star and came away no wiser than before. But later I wondered if the Tibetan monks were aware that the Bodhi tree was murmuring with gusts of birds, while another large pipal, so close by that it touched the holy tree with many branches, was without life. I make no claim for the event: I simply declare what I saw at Bodh Gaya. — Peter Matthiessen

I've just been playing the Trout Quintet on the phonograph. Listening to the andantino makes me want to be a trout myself. You can't help rejoicing and laughing, however moved or sad you feel, when you see the springtime clouds in the sky, the budding branches, moved by the wind, in the bright early sunlight. I'm really looking forward to the spring again. In that piece of Schubert's you can positively feel and smell the breeze and hear the birds and the whole of creation shouting for joy. — Sophie Scholl

The fading dawn colors revive momentarily, and the sky shines with lilac and daffodil, layering colors in clouds like quilts stacked on a bed. More birds chime into the morning air: a nuthatch's nasal onk joins the crow's croak and a black-throated green warbler's murmur from the branches above the mandala. As the colors finally fade under the fierce gaze of their mother, the sun, a wood thrush caps the dawn chorus with his astounding song. The song seems to pierce through from another world, carrying with it clarity and ease, purifying me for a few moments with its grace. Then the song is gone, the veil closes, and I am left with embers of memory. — David George Haskell

Walking on willow tree roads by a river dappled with peach blossoms, I look for spring light, but am everywhere lost. Birds fly up and scatter floating catkins. A ponderous wave of flowers sags the branches. — Wang Wei

The kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed, he said, that grows into an enormous tree with branches wide and strong enough to make a home for all the birds. It is like a buried treasure, a delicious feast, or a net that catches an abundance of fish. The kingdom is right here, Jesus said. It is present and yet hidden, immanent yet transcendent. The kingdom isn't some far-off place you go when you die; the kingdom is at hand - among us and beyond us, now and not-yet. It is the wheat growing in the midst of weeds, the yeast working its magic in the dough, the pearl germinating in a sepulchral shell. It can come and go in the twinkling of an eye, Jesus said. So pay attention; don't miss it. — Rachel Held Evans

I am the saint at prayer on the terrace like the peaceful beasts that graze down to the sea of Palestine.
I am the scholar of the dark armchair. Branches and rain hurl themselves at the windows of my library.
I am the pedestrian of the highroad by way of the dwarf woods; the roar of the sluices drowns my steps. I can see for a long time the melancholy wash of the setting sun.
I might well be the child abandoned on the jetty on its way to the high seas, the little farm boy following the lane, its forehead touching the sky.
The paths are rough. The hillocks are covered with broom. The air is motionless. How far away are the birds and the springs! It can only be the end of the world ahead. — Arthur Rimbaud

Ledge

Birds that love
high trees
and winds

and riding
flailing branches
hate ledges
as gripless
and narrow,

so that a tail
is not just
no advantage
but ridiculous,
mashed vertical
against the wall.
You will have
seen the way
a bird who falls
on skimpy places

lifts into the air
again in seconds --
a gift denied
the rest of us
when our portion
isn't generous. — Kay Ryan

Where did you say you found that bird again?"
"In my head." Ronan's laugh was a sharp jackal cry.
"Dangerous place," commented Noah.
Ronan stumbled, all his edges blunted by alcohol, and the raven in his hands let out a feeble sound more percussive than vocal. He replied, "Not for Chainsaw."
Back out in the hard spring night, Gansey tipped his head back. Now that he knew that Ronan was all right, he could see that Henrietta after dark was a beautiful place, a patchwork town embroidered with black tree branches.
A raven, of all the birds for Ronan to turn up with.
Gansey didn't believe in coincidences. — Maggie Stiefvater

I'd heard once in school that if a single bird were to transport all the sand, grain by grain, from the eastern seabord to the west coast of Africa, it would take ... I didn't catch the number of years, preferring to concentrate on the single bird chosen to perform this thankless task. It hardly seemed fair, because, unlike a horse or a Seeing Eye dog, the whole glory of being a bird is that nobody would ever put you to work. Birds search for grubs and build their nests, but their leisure time is theirs to spend as they see fit. I pictured this bird looking down from the branches to say, "You want me to do what?" before flying off, laughing at the at the foolish story he now had to tell his friends. — David Sedaris

The chance of any species reaching and then surviving on an island as distant as one of the Hawaiian chain is infinitesimal, but despite the extraordinary odds, plants and seeds found their way ashore, carried by the tide or blown by trade winds, inside birds or in their feathers, in the branches of trees and in the jetsam of sunken ships. — Susanna Moore

The blue jay playing around the cabin means you are going to have plenty of good times and fun. The blue jay is a clown and bounces on the ends of branches and turns flips and teases other birds. — Forrest Carter

Men who stand on any other foundation than the rock Christ Jesus are like birds that build in trees by the side of rivers. The bird sings in the branches, and the river sings below, but all the while the waters are undermining the soil about the roots, till, in some unsuspected hour, the tree falls with a crash into the stream; and then its nest is sunk, its home is gone, and the bird is a wanderer. — Henry Ward Beecher

LONG LIVE ...
This country is but a wish of the spirit, a counter-sepulcher.
In my country, tender proofs of spring and badly dressed birds are preferred to far-off goals.
Truth waits for dawn beside a candle. Window glass is neglected. To the watchful, what does it matter?
In my country, we don't question a man deeply moved.
There is no malignant shadow on the capsized boat.
A cool hello is unknown in my country.
We borrow only what can be returned increased.
There are leaves, many leaves, on the trees in my country. The branches are free to bear no fruits.
We don't believe in the good faith of the victor.
In my country, we say thank you. — Rene Char

What I mean is,' continued Amit, 'it sprouts, and grows, and spreads, and drops down branches that become trunks or intertwine with other branches. Sometimes branches die. Sometimes the main trunk dies, and the structure is held up by the supporting trunks. When you go to the Botanical Garden you'll see what I mean. It has its own life - but so do the snakes and birds and bees and lizards and termites that live in it and on it and off it. But then it's also like the Ganges in its upper, middle and lower courses - including its delta - of course. — Vikram Seth

The chokecherries -- gregarious and chatty, perched on their branches calling out to everyone to strip them off. Wild plums -- sarcastic and timid at the same time -- called out from behind their leaves only to retreat into the brushy brambles where they lived. Raspberries and blackberries -- royal and corrupt princes -- braved it out in the full sun of forest clearings. Gooseberries and huckleberries -- reticent, tradition-bound and private -- lived on unbothered in the swamps. Cranberries and pincherries (those party-goers) draped themselves over the furniture of the branches and invited all passerby, birds and people, to join the party. The blueberries and wintergreen grew undisturbed -- calmly bourgeois -- in the carpeted hush of the big woods. — David Treuer

Mr. J.L.B Matekoni," she asked, "do you think that our souls grow as we get older?"
He did not answer immediately, but when he did, she thought his answer quite perfect. "Yes," he said. "Our souls get wider. They grow like the branches of a tree--growing outwards. And more birds come and make their homes in these branches. And sing a bit more." He stopped and looked a little awkward. "I'm talking nonsense, Mma."
"You're not," she said. — Alexander McCall Smith

The white moon above the clearing coldly illuminates the still tableaux of our embracements. How sweet I roamed, or, rather, used to roam; once I was the perfect child of the meadows of summer, but then the year turned, the light clarified and I saw the gaunt Erl-King, tall as a tree with birds in its branches, and he drew me towards him on his magic lasso of inhuman music. — Anonymous

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better. — Mary Oliver

A stone lies in a river; a piece of wood is jammed against it; dead leaves, drifting logs, and branches caked with mud collect; weeds settle there, and soon birds have made a nest and are feeding their young among the blossoming water plants. Then the river rises and the earth is washed away. The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; - such is our personality. — Cyril Connolly

Jacob wrote that the true poet 'is like a man who is happy anywhere, in endless measure, if he is allowed to look at leaves and grass, to see the sun rise and set. The false poet travels abroad in strange countries and hopes to be uplifted by the mountains of Switzerland, the sky and sea of Italy. He comes to them and is dissatisfied. He is not as happy as the man who stays at home and sees the apple trees flower in spring, and hears the small birds singing among the branches — Jacob Grimm

Fate. As a child, that word was often my only companion. It whispered to me from dark corners during lonely nights. It was the song of the birds in spring and the call of the wind through bare branches on a cold winter afternoon. Fate. Both my anguish and my solace. My escort and my cage. — Leslye Walton

Look out the window behind her. "I see trees, the sky, and some clouds. Some birds on tree branches." "Nothing out of the ordinary. Right?" "That's right." "But if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow, everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn't it?" "I suppose so." "Have you ever thought about that?" "I have." A surprised look comes over her. "When?" "When I'm in love," I tell her. — Haruki Murakami

The deeper I went into the valley, the greater the rewards. First, it was a clump of birches, the bottoms wrapped in thick fog, the uppermost branches clear now, nesting birds waking with bright-eyed songs. Next, I passed under the pines, browned needles underfoot, and was transported to the quiet moments of rapture under such branches throughout my life. The last, and worth all other gifts combined, was that moment when the valley inhaled, taking with it the fog. In its place, so close to where I was standing, there they were, the year's first flowers, the pure white snowdrops springing from the dark-green foliage under the elms. It was as if the clouds were swept in an instant from the sky leaving only the quiet delicacy of the stars. — Megan Rich

Without having to think about it, I knew Julian and Zav were sitting in the front seats and Sasha was in the back. I could imagine her leaning forward from time to time, asking for a joke to be repeated or pointing out some funny road sign. Trying to campaign for her own existence, before finally giving up and lying back on the seat. Letting their conversation thicken into meaningless noise while she watched the road, the passing orchards. The branches flashing with the silver ties that kept away birds. - — Emma Cline

His face was very heavily creased, and into each crease he had tucked some worry or other, so that it wasn't really his face any longer, but more like a tree that had nests of birds in all of the branches. He had to struggle constantly to manage it and always looked worn out from the effort. — Arthur Golden

Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches. — Willa Cather

kingdom of heaven is like a a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. — Anonymous

Bea had to admit that the landscape was rather pretty, with all those sparkling drops hanging off branches (waiting to destroy one's clothing, but one mustn't be squeamish about it). And the birds were singing, and so forth. She even saw a yellow flower that was rather nice, although mud-splattered.
"Look!" she said, trying to be friendly. 'A daffodil!'
'Yellow celandine,' her companion said curtly.
After that, Bea gave up the effort of conversation and just tramped along. — Eloisa James

When we neared the orchard a flock of birds lit from its outer rows. They hadn't been there long. The branches shook with their absent weight and the birds circled above in the riddy mackerel sky, where they made an artless semaphore. I was afraid, I smelled copper and cheap wine. The sun was up, but a half-moon hung low on the opposite horizon, cutting through the morning sky like a figure from a child's pull-tab book.
We were lined along the ditch up to our ankles in a soupy muck. It all seemed in that moment to be the conclusion of a poorly designed experiment in inevitability. Everything was in its proper place, waiting for a pause in time, for the source of all momentum to be stilled, so that what remained would be nothing more than detritus to be tallied up. The world was paper-thin as far as I could tell. And the world was the orchard, and the orchard was what came next. But none of that was true. I was only afraid of dying. — Kevin Powers

The street is still shut as we step into the molten-gold atmosphere of mid-afternoon. The houses face each other across the passages like armies of an ancient Arabian battlefield ... .We narrow our eyes against the glare. Beating their wings, the birds too are leaving the trees for the mosque. The leaves hang like limp hands from the branches. We try to think of the cool blue river and, turning around, glance towards where the river wets the horizon. But the river, too, seems helpless before the insanity of the sun, lying like an exhausted lizard at the end of the street — Nadeem Aslam

In the autumn, the entire backyard became a mass of lollipop-yellow leaves, so bright they lit up the night like daylight. Birds nesting in the trees would get confused because they couldn't tell what time of day it was, and they would stay awake for days until they dropped out of the branches with exhaustion. — Sarah Addison Allen

You know how summer goes. You yearn for it and yearn for it, but there's always something wrong. Everywhere you look, there are insects thickening the air, and birds rifling trees, and enormous, heavy leaves dragging down branches. You want to trammel it, wreck it, smash things down. The afternoons are so fat and long. You want to see if anything you do matters. * — Emily Fridlund