Birds Of Paradise Quotes & Sayings

Alexander, you broke my heart. But for carrying me on your back, for pulling my dying sled, for giving me your last bread, for the body you destroyed for me, for the son you have given me, for the twenty-nine days we lived like Red Birds of Paradise, for all our Naples sands and Napa wines, for all the days you have been my first and last breath, for Orbeli- I will forgive you. — Paullina Simons

Much as Africa has leapfrogged straight to mobile phones, it has the opportunity to skip the dirty, grid-tied power plants that currently operate across the developed world and go straight to clean, distributed power. — Alex Honnold

Once upon a time, [ ... ]. There was a world that was perfectly made and full of birds and striped creatures and lovely things like honey lilies and star tenzing and weasels
[ ... ] And this world already had light and shadow, so it didn't need any rouge stars to come and save it, and it had no use for bleeding suns or weeping moons, either, and most important, it had never known war, which is a terrible and wasteful thing that no world needs. It had earth and water, air and fire, all four elements, but it was missing the last element. Love.
[ ... ]
And so this paradise was like a jewel box without a jewel. There it lay, day after day of rose-colored dawns and creature sounds and strange perfumes, and waited for lovers to find it and fill it with their happiness. The end.
[ ... ]
The story is unfinished. The world is still waiting. — Laini Taylor

I became an ifrit to save the lives of my fellow jinn. What kind of life saver would I be if I let you sit here and wither away in paradise?"
Just an obstacle. Just an obstacle.
I meet the ifrit's eyes. "What happened to all your talk about birds and fish having nowhere to live?"
The ifrit shrugs. "I suggest you start holding your breath, my friend," he says, then pushes through the hearing room doors. — Jackson Pearce

But I could not remain where I was any longer, though the daylight was hateful to me, and the thought of the great, innocent, bold sunrise unendurable. Here there was no well to cool my face, smarting with the bitterness of my own tears. Nor would I have washed in the well of that grotto, had it flowed clear as the rivers of Paradise. I rose, and feebly left the sepulchral cave. I took my way I knew not whither, but still towards the sunrise. The birds were singing; but not for me. All the creatures spoke a language of their own, with which I had nothing to do, and to which I cared not to find the key any more. — George MacDonald

I want to hear a million robins making a frightful racket. I sort of like birds." "All women are birds," he ventured. "What kind am I?" - quick and eager. "A swallow, I think, and sometimes a bird of paradise. Most girls are sparrows, of course - see that row of nurse-maids over there? They're sparrows - or are they magpies? And of course you've met canary girls - and robin girls." "And swan girls and parrot girls. All grown women are hawks, I think, or owls." "What am I - a buzzard?" She laughed and shook her head. "Oh, no, you're not a bird at all, do you think? You're a Russian wolfhound." Anthony remembered that they were white and always looked unnaturally hungry. But then they were usually photographed with dukes and princesses, so he was properly flattered. "Dick's — F Scott Fitzgerald

What you see at the Field Museum is only like, 10 percent of the collection. It's birds of paradise and passenger pigeons and in all these drawers that pull out, these specimens come out and it's spectacular. And it worked out. — Andrew Bird

Don't you sometimes get a little tired of being so constantly outraged? - Mr Marsh — Liesel Schwarz

Then, for more than ten days, they did not see the sun again. The ground became soft and damp, like volcanic ash, and the vegetation was thicker and thicker, and the cries of the birds and the uproar of the monkeys became more and more remote, and the world became eternally sad. The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In the cupboard sits my bottle
like a dwarf waiting to scratch out my prayers.
I drink and cough like some idiot at a symphony,
sunlight and maddened birds are everywhere,
the phone rings gamboling its sound
against the odds of the crooked sea;
I drink deeply and evenly now,
I drink to paradise
and death
and the lie of love. — Charles Bukowski

I do love one-upmanship sometimes, like when you see kids breakdancing and who can do the best tricks. It's common, it's in our nature as animals, like the birds of paradise who've got the best feathers and that sort of stuff. But it's fun when it's impulsive and it's about fun. — Bjork

The sun tells the best joke of a day full of them, setting so spectacularly that you can almost smell the tropical paradise lazing somewhere over this rim of endless, gray socialist towers. Miles of square windows explode orange, red, and purple, like a million TV sets broadcasting the apocalypse. Clouds unspool. The sky drains of birds. — Tod Wodicka

I always loved fish for the colors and birds for the plumage. In the same way, I loved those women of the cabaret. They were birds of paradise. — Christian Louboutin

In this instance, however, the answer was quite straightforward: "Men want women beautiful, romantic... birds of paradise instead of hurrying brown hens," said Bazaar in October 1945. As families were reestablished, there was a move toward a celebratory fashion of fecundity, with closer-fitting waists and rounder hips. — Amanda Mackenzie Stuart

A tree is alive, and thus it is always more than you can see. Roots to leaves, yes-those you can, in part, see. But it is more-it is the lichens and moss and ferns that grow on its bark, the life too small to see that lives among its roots, a community we know of, but do not think on. It is every fly and bee and beetle that uses it for shelter or food, every bird that nests in its branches. Every one an individual, and yet every one part of the tree, and the tree part of every one. — Elizabeth Moon

I look forward to seeing you in the "jungle" as our warriors meet and join the battle drum that calls for unity in the struggle for breaking the chains of modern slavery - like the butterflies flying the skies and the birds over the seas, all are welcomed for both ear and eye - promises of victory are high, for even if unattainable today, tomorrow still holds the torch and dream, like fire of paradise, glory of life, glory of eternity! — Martin Guevara Urbina

I look up at the ceiling, tracing the foliage of the wreath. Today it makes me think of a hat, the large-brimmed hats women used to wear at some period during the old days: hats like enormous halos, festooned with fruit and flowers, and the feathers of exotic birds; hats like an idea of paradise, floating just above the head, a thought solidified. — Margaret Atwood

Hidden all day in impenetrable black burkas, rich Saudi women transformed themselves by night into birds of paradise with their corsets, their see-through bras, their G-strings with multicolored lace and rhinestones. They were exactly the opposite of Western women, who spent their days dressed up and looking sexy to maintain their social status, then collapsed in exhaustion once they got home, abandoning all hope of seduction in favor of clothes that were loose and shapeless. — Michel Houellebecq

I cried suddenly from the bottom of my heart, "look at the divine gifts around us: the clear sky, the fresh air, the tender grass, the birds, nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, we alone, are godless and foolish, and do not understand that life is paradise, for we need only wish to understand, and it will come at once in all its beauty, and we shall embrace each other and weep ... " wanted to go on but I could not, so much sweetness, so much youngness even took my breath away, and in my heart there was such happiness as I had never felt before in all my life. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

St. Petersburg is a wonderful city. You have wonderful parks, birds singing in the trees, manatees in the water, pelicans. So it's like this little paradise on Earth. — Bjarke Ingels

If a separate personal Paradise exists for each of us, mine must be irreparably planted with trees of words which the wind silvers like poplars, by people who see their confiscated justice given back, and by birds that even in the midst of truth of death insist on singing in Greek and saying eros, eros, eros. — Odysseus Elytis

You are putting on paper, in print, what you sense and feel in your mind. — Anthony Barboza

Secret Stories, which advertised name-brand lingerie at discount prices, had nothing to worry about: the same kind of shops were doing fine in the malls of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Neither, for that matter, did Chantal Thomass or La Perla. Hidden all day in impenetrable black burkas, rich Saudi women transformed themselves by night into birds of paradise with their corsets, their see-through bras, their G-strings with multicolored lace and rhinestones. They were exactly the opposite of Western women, who spent their days dressed up and looking sexy to maintain their social status, then collapsed in exhaustion once they got home, abandoning all hope of seduction in favor of clothes that were loose and shapeless. All — Michel Houellebecq

:We aren't leaving here,: Cricket answered sleepily
:Oh, but we are,: insisted the wolf with confidence. :You have bigger business about you than lingering here in bird paradise.:
After everything that had happened with Neferre, Cricket knew the wolf's words were true but decided to ignore them. :They don't like being called birds,: she scolded. :And do you have gas? Ugh.:
:Just the same,: said the wolf evenly, :time will take us from here. Be prepared when that happens.: — Ash Gray

What I like best is walking with my hands in my pockets, having the Doorman next to me, and imagining that Audrey's on my other side.
I always picture us from behind. — Markus Zusak

During that night the blessed Antony told us this, too. 'A whole year long I prayed that the place of the righteous and of the sinners be revealed to me, and I saw a huge giant, high as the clouds and black. He had his hand stretched out to heaven, and beneath him there was a lake the size of a sea and I saw souls, flying like birds. 17. " 'Those flying above his hands and his head were being saved; they that were struck by his hands were falling into the lake. A voice came to me saying, "Those souls that you see flying above are the souls of the righteous, the ones that are being brought safely into Paradise; the others are they that are being dragged down to Hades, having followed the desires of the flesh and the remembrance of injuries." ' "* — John Wortley

I don't give a damn what queers do, and don't give a damn what Christians do. Just get the hell out of my way because I want to live my life and I don't want the government sucking 60% of my wages off my ass. — Alex Jones

There is a level of consciousness between sleeping and fully wakening when the worries of the day have not settled upon us; the body is stilled, and the senses wholly receptive. If the sun is bright, there is pure silence, or the birds are beginning to sing, this shining level of consciousness can come to be the nearest we will get to paradise this side of our quietus, Every day should begin so, This is no dream. This is the reality. The world outside is beautiful. We do our best to hide it. We cover it. We push it father back. The ugliness we make ourselves. We originate our own worries. We put on our own shackles; build our prisons. We can only glimpse the golden reality, briefly, through our tiny barred windows. — John Wyatt

[on going to Sunday school:] It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks and silver sugar spoons and hay ricks and paper-covered novels and picture frames and rag carpets and toothpicks and skating rinks and birds of paradise and roof gardens and burdocks and French grammars before Sunday school time. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

Feathers!" spluttered Sargatanas. "Feathers are for the birds, my boy. Flaking, peeling, scale-ridden wings, now that's what real beings wear. I'll tell you a secret." He said, and drew me closer. "The eternal pain at having known Paradise and lost it is priceless. I wouldn't swap it for anything. — George Pendle

Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn:
It listens, listens. Taller trees beyond
Listen. The moon at the unruffled pond
Stares. And you sing, you sing.
That star-enchanted song falls through the air
From lawn to lawn down terraces of sound,
Darts in white arrows on the shadowed ground;
And all the night you sing.
My dreams are flowers to which you are a bee
As all night long I listen, and my brain
Receives your song, then loses it again
In moonlight on the lawn.
Now is your voice a marble high and white,
Then like a mist on fields of paradise,
Now is a raging fire, then is like ice,
Then breaks, and it is dawn. — Harold Monro

It is possible I never learned the names of birds in order to discover the bird of peace, the bird of paradise, the bird of the soul, the bird of desire. It is possible I avoided learning the names of composers and their music the better to close my eyes and listen to the mystery of all music as an ocean. It may be I have not learned dates in history in order to reach the essence of timelessness. It may be I never learned geography the better to map my own routes and discover my own lands. The unknown was my compass. The unknown was my encyclopedia. The unnamed was my science and progress. — Anais Nin

A glimpse
of my feathers.
Show too much and they'll tear you apart
Bird of Paradise
Born in the trenches
Facing the mouth of a gun. — Emily Bird