Quotes & Sayings About Canary

Set between England and the Spanish Canary Islands, three women learn the truth about their shared past, and discover the importance of family. Spain, 1939. Following the wishes of her parents to keep her safe during the war, a young girl, Julia, enters a convent in Barcelona. — Rosanna Ley

there was a certain twinkle in his eye, a knowing cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that drew me in. — Matt Converse

I thought that there was only one kind of love, one that developed instantaneously and struck you like a bolt of lightning, made you irrational and selfish like it did my parents. I realized too late that love took different forms and the one we had - " He cupped her face. "It was there, the first day we met, growing "gradually from friendship into what's inside my heart now."
He brought her hand to his chest. "It's there, steady, constant, making my heart beat for you, making my heart race when you're near, making my heart sing like a goddamn canary when you're happy. I never thought this kind of love existed until I had lost you. — Marian Tee

To be able to make a good living in a challenging medium like soap operas is great. The best is that I get to act and am rewarded for it. And the people I work with are great. Funny, intelligent, hard working. They're all great to be around. — David Canary

The canary began to sing again. The sun had struck it, and its throat and tiny breast had filled with song. Francis gazed at it for a long time, not speaking, his mouth hanging half opened, his eyes dimmed with tears.
"The canary is like man's soul," he whispered finally. "It sees bars round it, but instead if despairing, it sings. It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo: one day its song shall break the bars. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health. The great will not condescend to take anything seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of years. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It took only one gunshot. His brother and the canary were silenced forever, in front of his eyes ... — Refaat Alareer

The canary is like a man's soul. It sees bars around it, but instead of despairing, it sings. — Nikos Kazantzakis

A caged canary is secure; but it is not free. It is easier for free men to resist terrorism from afar than tyranny from within. — Chuck Baldwin

Perhaps poetry will be the canary in the mine-shaft warning us of what's to come. — Galway Kinnell

Being in love, you know ... it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out and get another to replace her. — Sarah Waters

An Indigo Bunting let out a trill, a cheery song, reminding me of better days, of hope and happiness and all the lofty promises a blue canary can sing about. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the heady morning air. Looking within myself, I searched for the man I once was. — Cheryl R Cowtan

In Marin County, north of San Francisco, the search for a safe haven resulted in a new apartment complex - the first, and only, such government-sponsored project aimed at MCS. — Peter Radetsky

Internet trolling wasn't just a symptom, it was a canary. Trolls tested the boundaries of how far society would allow racism, misogyny, and transphobia to be normalized. Would anyone do anything? Would anyone take action? Would anyone powerful take this seriously? The answer turned out to be no. Those of us on the receiving end begged for help, and were told to grow a thicker skin, because the Internet "isn't real life." Until, surprise, the Internet became president, and we as a society were so inured to hate speech - our boundaries had been so thoroughly obliterated and "political correctness" so stigmatized - that we had no defense. There — Lindy West

If you asked why the post had not come, or why the boat did not sail for England, or why your coffee was cold, or why your boots were not cleaned, or why your window was shut, or why the canary didn't sing,-you would always be sure to be told, c'est la guerre! — Louise Mack

To me, Green Arrow in the past, what people loved about Oliver Queen pre-New 52 was his relationships with other heroes. Like his friendship with Green Lantern, his animosity with Hawkman, his romance with Black Canary - these are all the things that sort of defined him. — Jeff Lemire

Sand can be any shade of yellow, from peroxide blond to canary, or even with a tinge of pink.
Yellow sand is tender. — Herta Muller

Don't save the canary. Fix the coal mine. — Seth Godin

Entomologist Dr. Ovid Byron speaking to television journalist, Tina, who says, re. global warming, "Scientists of course are in disagreement about whether this is happening and whether humans have a role."
He replies:
"The Arctic is genuinely collapsing. Scientists used to call these things the canary in the mine. What they say now is, The canary is dead. We are at the top of Niagara Falls, Tina, in a canoe. There is an image for your viewers. We got here by drifting, but we cannot turn around for a lazy paddle back when you finally stop pissing around. We have arrived at the point of an audible roar. Does it strike you as a good time to debate the existence of the falls?" p.367 — Barbara Kingsolver

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf. — Anton Chekhov

Mr Mowett,' called Stephen in the pause while the table was clearing to make room for the pudding, and pudding-wine - in this case Frontignan and Canary - was handing about, 'you were telling me about your publishers.'
'Yes, sir: I was about to say that they were the most hellish procrastinators - '
'Oh how dreadful,' cried Fanny. 'Do they go to - to special houses, or do they ... '
'He means they delay,' said Babbington.
'Oh. — Patrick O'Brian

Who ever felt canary yellow and light blue are a suitable color should be tarred and feathered. — Rae Z. Ryans

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

The functions of the human frame are, broadly speaking, known. They are a country, anyhow, that has been charted and mapped out. But outside that lie huge tracts of undiscovered country, which certainly exist, and the real pioneers of knowledge are those who, at the cost of being derided as credulous and superstitious, want to push on into
those misty and probably perilous places. I felt that I could be of more use by setting out without compass or knapsack into the mists than by sitting in a cage like a canary and chirping about what was known. Besides, teaching is very very bad for a man who knows himself only to be a learner: you only need to be a self-conceited ass to teach. — E.F. Benson

Did you ever stop to think that a dog is the only animal that doesn't have to work for a living? A hen has to lay eggs, a cow has to give milk, and a canary has to sing. But a dog makes his living by giving you nothing but love. — Dale Carnegie

Had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers. — P.G. Wodehouse

The Canary Islands offer special incentives to companies looking at potential filming locations, so it was only logical for me to help the local government make connections with major U.S. film studios like Universal, Fox, Sony, Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, CBS, Viacom, Comcast, HBO, Netflix, Warner Brothers etc. — James Costos

Like the canary in the coal mine, the climate changes already evident in the Arctic are a call to action. — Susan Collins

Sam, Sam, quite contrary,
bought a budgie,
wanted a canary.
Sam, Sam, quite contrary,
kissed Suzannah,
meant to kiss Marry.
Sam, Sam, quite contrary,
dressed as a pirate,
playing a fairy.
Sam Sam quite contrary,
ate dark chocolate,
says he likes diary.
Sam, Sam, quite contarary,
shaved his head,
to make it hairy. — Chrissie Gittins

There's a great deal of child left in me and acting is fun. It's a make believe thing. — David Canary

Love is essential for happiness, but the person who loves so deeply that his or her happiness is placed entirely in the hands of another, resembles the little lamb who crept into the den of the nice, gentle little wolf and begged to be permitted to lie down and go to sleep, or the canary — Napoleon Hill

Fear sucks. Because you never know when it will attack. Sometimes it sneaks up behind you, giggling like your best girlfriend from seventh grade. Then it whacks you on the back of the head, takes you straight to your knees before you realize what hit you. Other times you can see it coming, just a dot on the horizon, but you're like a canary in a cage. All you can do is hang in there and hope you don't get motion sickness and puke all over the newspapers. — Jennifer Rardin

Will urban sprawl spread so far that most people lose all touch with nature? Will the day come when the only bird a typical American child ever sees is a canary in a pet shop window? When the only wild animal he knows is a rat-glimpsed on a night drive through some city slum? When the only tree he touches is the cleverly fabricated plastic evergreen that shades his gifts on Christmas morning? — Frank N. Ikard

Would you mind getting a picture of us?
"Anything for one of Miss McLachlan's fans."
He looks like the cat that swallowed the canary.
"I take some mighty fine pictures of Miss McLachlan, if I do say so myself. — Georgia Cates

Three rabbits, two cats, three parakeets, a dove, two parrots, three turkeys, two geese, a canary, and nine ducks at last count were just about what Noah had started with, and he never brought his animals into the house. — Bob Tarte

Then, all of a sudden, those pea-green lawns where the first scarlet poppies were flowering, those canary-yellow fields which striped the tawny hills sloping down to a sea full of azure glints, all seemed so trivial to me, so banal, so false, so much in contrast with Ayl's person, with Ayl's world, with Ayl's idea of beauty, that I realized her place could never have been out here. And I realized, with grief and fear, that I had remained out here, that I would never again be able to escape those gilded and silvered gleams, those little clouds that turned from pale blue to pink, those green leaves that yellowed every autumn, and that Ayl's perfect world was lost forever, so lost I couldn't even imagine it any more, and nothing was left that could remind me of it, even remotely, nothing except perhaps that cold wall of gray stone. — Italo Calvino

It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal. — Walker Percy

A caged canary is safe but not free. — Walter E. Williams

Perhaps I expected to look in and find a giant canary, stretched out on a carpet of dust, songless, capable of only heart murmurs for talk. — Ray Bradbury

Since that day I saw you in chemistry class with thatt canary yellow shirt, I wanted to make every day Christmas for you. — A.S. King

Measles is probably the best argument for why there needs to be global health, and why we have to think about it as a global public good. Because in a sense, measles is the canary in the coal mine for immunization. It is, you know, highly transmissible. The vaccine costs 15 cents, so it's not - you know, shouldn't be an issue in terms of cost. — Seth Berkley

Okay, woman. Spit that canary out and wipe those feathers off your chin. What the heck happened to you? Last night you were crying over a laxative commercial on TV. — Katherine Allred

Israel is the canary in the mine. What happens to Israel will eventually happen to America itself. — David Horowitz

Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Lolita, had you love me thus! — Vladimir Nabokov

You are not called to be a canary in a cage. You are called to be an eagle, and to fly sun to sun, over continents. — Henry Ward Beecher

I think the canary left some feathers in there after you ate it. — Ally Carter

Mrs. Grant glanced at her
husband. "She's always so fidgety.
Like a canary." She narrowed her
eyes at me. "I hate canaries."
I squeaked again. But not like a
canary. I hoped. — A&E Kirk

You look like the cat that ate the canary."
"As a vegetarian, I object to that metaphor."
Scout grinned teethily at me. "As a carnivore, I object to your pickines. Now spill the goods."
-Scout and Lily — Chloe Neill

If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera, it was Haiti - and we knew it. And in retrospect, more should have been done to prepare for cholera ... which can spread like wildfire in Haiti ... This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti. — Paul Farmer

Being proud of something is a very tricky word and I sometimes think it has a bad connotation. I don't feel proud, I feel grateful. I'm lucky. — David Canary

You can't soar like an eagle and crap like a canary. — Ed Sabol

If all currencies are moving up or down together, the question is: relative to what? Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it. — Alan Greenspan

In mid-September Soufan talked to an al-Qaeda prisoner named Ramzi Binalshibh, who was chained naked to the floor in a CIA black prison at the Bagram air base outside Kabul. He said he was starting to obtain "valuable actionable intelligence" before CIA officers ordered him to stop talking forty-five minutes later. On September 17, they flew their prisoner to a second black site in Morocco, then on to Poland; under extreme duress he described plots to crash airplanes into Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London. He was also diagnosed as a schizophrenic. — Tim Weiner

Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a word to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and delight, the canary that sings on the skull. — Annie Dillard

My grandest boyhood ambition was to be a professor of history at Notre Dame. Although what I do now is just a different way of working with history, I suppose.") He told me about his blind-in-one-eye canary rescued from a Woolworth's who woke him singing every morning of his boyhood; the bout of rheumatic fever that kept him in bed for six months; and the queer little antique neighborhood library with frescoed ceilings ("torn down now, alas") where he'd gone to get away from his house. About Mrs. De Peyster, the lonely old heiress he'd visited after school, a former Belle of Albany and local historian who clucked over Hobie and fed him Dundee cake ordered from England in tins, who was happy to stand for hours explaining to Hobie every single item in her china cabinet and who had owned, among other things, the mahogany sofa - rumored to have belonged to General Herkimer - that got him interested in furniture in the first place. — Donna Tartt

By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the other. "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!" The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, I thought. — Charles Dickens

I'm a Beethoven freak. I listen to him all the time. — David Canary

Did this mean he was about to tell her something he wouldn't normally? Her ears perked - figuratively, since her ears were now feather-covered holes in the sides of her head.
He laughed softly. "You know, you are almost enjoyable to talk to, when you do not say anything back."
She willed the water in the tub to strike him in the face.
There was a loud splash. "Hey!" He sounded surprised, but not unpleasantly so. "Interesting. You are still capable of elemental powers. But stop - or I will feed you to the castle cats."
She struck him again. — Sherry Thomas

A woman once held a Canary in the palm of her hand and stroked her and whispered a careful warning. The canary, seeking some freedom to fly, went into the mine while the woman watched in worry. The mine was filled with toxic gases and the Canary began to sing. She flew into danger, realized the threats around her, and wished to return to a place of refuge. — Donna Lynn Hope

We went to Denmark twice and Germany and also to the Canary Isles one year. I remember once when we were playing Dresden in Germany. — Dixie Dean

I stood transfixed, the silence ringing in my ears. From the field of wild grasses; cocksfoot, tufted hair, wild oat, tall fescue, reed canary and perennial rye, their subtle shades of green, ochre and pink softly patching and blending in rustling movement, suddenly rose a small flock of starlings that had been feeding quietly unseen among the tall waving stems, the swish of their glossy wings startlingly loud in the stillness of midday. Heat held me captive. — Nell Grey

I could set from memory a replica of the perfect Still Life she laid out on the table each morning: the carefully folded Advertiser, the two canary yellow hemispheres of grapefruit in their bowls, separated by a more richly yellowed cube of butter; the sky blue milk-jug and matching sugar bowl filled to the brim with their differently textured whitenesses; the pot of tea snug in its knitted navy blue cosy, the steam that rose invisibly from its spout suddenly rendered visible, swirling, where it entered the slanting morning light. — Peter Goldsworthy

[Magnus] was wearing canary-yellow pajamas, and on his feet were green slippers with alien faces, complete with sproingy atennae. — Cassandra Clare

When an arguer argues dispassionately, he thinks only of the argument, and the reader cannot help thinking of the argument too. If he had written dispassionately ... had used indisputable proofs to establish his argument and had shown no trace of wishing that the result should be one would thing rather than another, one would not have been angry either. One would have accepted the fact as one accepts that a pea is green or a canary yellow. — Virginia Woolf

Teenagers, especially girl ones, seem like the perfect canary-in-the-coal-mine characters to me. They capture American culture and its perversion, its hypocrisy - how absorbed we are with youth and beauty and sexualized imagery, for instance, while preaching abstinence and modesty. — Antonya Nelson

Social media is the ultimate canary in the coal mine — Jay Baer

Jonathan plopped his phone down and leaned back in his chair. "You look like you just ate a canary," Margie said to him. "I'm about to," he said. — C.D. Reiss

Alas, yes. Unfortunately our little canary has gone Section 2 on us. He's absolutely Upney;* halfway to Dagenham, in fact. We're keeping him here because he's not deemed a hazard to himself, but so far he's confessed to assassinating Margaret Thatcher - — Charles Stross

Why employ intelligent and highly paid ambassadors and then go and do their work for them? You don't buy a canary and sing yourself. — John Keats

Quinces are ripe...when they are the yellow of canary wings in midflight. they are ripe when their scent teases you with the snap of green apples and the perfumed embrace of coral roses. but even then quinces remain a fruit, hard and obstinate--useless...until they are simmered, coddled for hours above a low, steady flame. add honey and water and watch their dry, bone-colored flesh soak-up the heat, coating itself in an opulent orange, not of the sunrises that you never see but of the insides of tree-ripened papayas, a color you can taste. to answer your questionlove is not a bowl of quinces yellowing in a blue and white china bowl, seen but untouched. ~The Book of Salt — Monique Truong

Plant life is like the canary in the cage. When it starts to die off, we know we have problems. To ignore plant die off would be like the human race committing suicide. Human extinction would surely follow. — Steven Magee

People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent. — J.K. Rowling

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. — E. M. Forster

You should see what she's wearing, Callie. It's velvet. Canary yellow velvet. Turban to match. She looks like a furry banana. — Sarah MacLean

It seems to me that society usually wins. There are, to be sure, free spirits in the world, but their freedom, in the last analysis, is not much greater than that of a canary in a cage. They may leap from perch to perch; they may bathe and guzzle at their will; they may flap their wings and sing. But they are still in the cage, and soon or late it conquers them. — H.L. Mencken

Chestnut brown canary, ruby throated sparrow, sing a song, don't be long, thrill me to the marrow. — Sidney Crosby

Knowing without any doubt that the newly elected cannot help but be his zombies, Obama is the cat who swallowed the canary. — Judi McLeod

That's what the cat said to the canary when he swallowed him - 'You'll be all right.' — Alvah Bessie

It is a pity that so many Americans today think of the Indian as a romantic or comic figure in American history without contemporary significance. In fact, the Indian plays much the same role in our society that the Jews played in Germany. Like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith. — Felix S. Cohen

Claire glanced up from where she had been pacing, twisting the two-carat canary diamond ring on her third finger. She had not noticed her mother's entrance. She stopped pacing. She knew how much her mother loved that — Mara Stone

My father used to run auctions. He's now a singer in the Canary Islands. — Jason Statham

There are times when the heart, like the canary in the coal mine, breathes in the world's toxicity and begins to die. — Parker J. Palmer

I also know that the shock of Annabel's death consolidated the frustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle to any further romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remain incomprehensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters of today. Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Lolita, had you loved me thus! — Vladimir Nabokov

For the first part of the journey Maia kept her eyes on the side of the road. Now that she was really leaving her friends it was hard to hold back her tears.
She had reached the gulping stage when she heard a loud snapping noise and turned her head. Miss Minton had opened the metal clasp of her large black handbag and was handing her a clean handkerchief, embroidered with the initial A.
"Myself," said the governess in her deep gruff voice, "I would think how lucky I was. How fortunate."
"To go to the Amazon, you mean?"
"To have so many friends who were sad to see me go."
"Didn't you have friends who minded you leaving?"
Miss Minton's thin lips twitched for a moment.
"My sister's canary, perhaps. If he had understood what was happening. Which is extremely doubtful. — Eva Ibbotson

You know that feeling when you're suddenly startled out of a deep sleep, and you're in that hazy middle world where you're not sure what's real - like maybe you actually could be chasing after an ice cream truck wearing only fishing waders and a canary yellow bridesmaid's dress, or you're just one answer away from winning a year's supply of adult diapers on a Japanese game show?
- SINGLE-MINDED — Lisa Daily

Right and responsibility go hand in hand. You can't give rights to those who are not responsible. If you want to let your canary out of the cage, the first thing you would do is to kick your cat out of the house. This does not mean you don't love your cat, but he has no right to stay in the house because he can't act responsibly. It would be foolish to wait until he kills the canary and then punish him. You already know the cat can't be trusted. The problem with Muslims is that they too can't be trusted and can't act responsibly. — Ali Sina

You know it's time to start using mouthwash when your dentist leaves the room and sends in a canary. — Joan Rivers

Just then Neville caused a slight diversion by turning into a large canary. — J.K. Rowling

And he supposed it might not be the best of days. But then, he was flying the mails and was not expected to squat on the ground like a frightened canary every time there was a cloud in the sky. If a pilot showed an obvious preference for flying only in the best conditions he soon found himself looking for work. This was the way of his life and he had always ascended when others had found excuse to keep their feet on the ground. — Ernest K. Gann

and the moon passes over the sun and nothing changes and nothing is learned because you have lost your bucket and shovel and no longer care. What if you regain the surface and open your sack and find, instead of treasure, a beast which jumps at you? Or you may not come back at all. The winches may jam, the scaffolding buckle, the air conditioning collapse. You may glance up one day and see by your headlamp the canary keeled over in its cage. You may reach into a cranny for pearls and touch a moray eel. You yank on your rope; it is too late. — Annie Dillard

He wore pink linen slacks, white sneakers and a canary yellow open-neck shirt. He evidently thought himself hot stuff. — Basil Copper

We're performing several shows in the Canary Islands. — George Duke

My father once nearly came to blows with a female dinner guest about whether a particular patch of embroidery was fuchsia or magenta.
But the infinite gradations of color in a fine sunset - from salmon to canary to midnight blue - left him wordless. — Alison Bechdel

It's fun playing two roles. The roles provide a wonderful range of emotions. Stuart is childlike and sensitive. Adam is ruthless, outrageous. He's flamboyant. He does the unexpected. — David Canary

Canary light of oil lamps — Jonathan Safran Foer

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?"
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest though bold Robin Hood
Would, wit his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can
"I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. — John Keats

The canary bird in the coal mine theory of the arts: artists should be treasured as alarm systems. — Kurt Vonnegut

I'd soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! — Emily Bronte

My answer provided me with the first smile I'd seen on William's face. It was more a grin, a cat-catches-the-canary kind of grin that froze me in place. Had I been more intuitive then, I would've known of the things to come. — Paloma Beck

She was wearing a canary-yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years. — J.D. Salinger