Feathers That Fly Quotes & Sayings

Yes, I actually have a portable fly-tying kit in my vest. I spent hours putting it all together, with a special emphasis on midge materials as well as enough fur and feathers to whip out a half dozen of virtually every conceivable dry pattern nature can throw at me. I have used it once, in 1993. — Jack Ohman

Don't judge a bird by its feathers;
judge it by how high it can fly. — Matshona Dhliwayo

You're not a proper dragon', they sneered. 'You can't fly.' 'You can't breathe fire.' 'You're covered in feathers, you big...softy.'

"We're covered in feathers,' says Bib. "Yes," says Mummy, "feathers keep us warm, but they can't keep cold words out. — Debi Gliori

Why? But why don't we have feathers? Or Wings? Nothing but the shoulder blades where wings would be attached? Why, because we no longer need wings. We've got aeros. Wings would only be in the way. Wings are for flying, but we have nowhere to fly to, we've already flown there, we've found it. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men
And keep us all in servile fearfulness. — William Shakespeare

There's a sweet sound," he said, slashing at the air. "Flap closer, Snow. I mean to make your feathers fly. — George R R Martin

A bird needs both long and short feathers to fly," said Jia. "You need to learn to work with different kinds of people." Kuni nodded, glad of Jia's wisdom. — Ken Liu

That's the beauty of it. Have you seen the contraptions these magicians build to accomplish the most mundane feats? They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, I am simply a bird in their midst. — Erin Morgenstern

She remembered a story she had once heard: a woman had gossiped about her neighbors and later regretted what she said. She went to the rabbi and asked how she might take back her words. He instructed her to take a feather pillow to the top of the highest hill and tear it open, letting the feathers fly every which way. Then, the rabbi said, she should return to him and he would tell her what to do. She did as he said and when she returned, he told her to go outside and gather the feathers. But that's impossible, she cried. They're already scattered all over the village. He looked at her and smiled. The same is true of your words, he said. — Tova Mirvis

Four wings, two hearts, but only one soul. They connect in the middle, but are separated by a thin line of ash. Its what brings them together, yet rips their feathers apart. They can never truly be together as light and dark. Unless one makes the ultimate sacrifice. Blows out their candle, and joins the other in the dark. Or if the other dares to fly across the line and steals the others light And force them to cross over the line and join the darkness of life. Im not gone, princess. I will come back for you until you give in. — Jessica Sorensen

I often say if men were meant to fly we would have been born with either feathers and wings or at the very least parachutes that pop out of our butts. — John Zakour

It's the little details I love. How to fletch your arrows with owl feathers, because owls fly silently, so maybe your arrows will, too. How to carry fire in a piece of smouldering fungus wrapped in birchbark. These are the things which help a world come alive. — Michelle Paver

Birds of the same feathers flock together, and when they flock together they fly so high. — Cecil Thounaojam

(The) Gray wagtail ... doesn't look like much, does he? Hardly a couple of ounces of feathers and bones. But that bird can fly to Africa and back. Powered by bugs and worms and desire. — Anthony Doerr

Hope has no feathers
Hope takes flight
tethered with twine
like a tattered kite,
slave to the wind's
capricious drift
eager to soar
but needing lift

Hope waits stubbornly
watching the sky
for turmoil, feeding on
things that fly:
crows, ashes, newspapers,
dry leaves in flight
all suggest wind
that could lift a kite

Hope sails and plunges
firmly caught
at the end of her string -
fallen slack, pulling taught,
ragged and featherless.
Hope never flies
but doggedly watches
for windy skies. — Elizabeth Wein

Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly is there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing? — Jonathan Safran Foer

What I aim to do is not so much learn the names of the shreds of creation that flourish in this valley, but to keep myself open to their meanings, which is to try to impress myself at all times with the fullest possible force of their very reality. I want to have things as multiply and intricately as possible present and visible in my mind. Then I might be able to sit on the hill by the burnt books where the starlings fly over, and see not only the starlings, the grass field, the quarried rock, the viney woods, Hollins pond, and the mountains beyond, but also, and simultaneously, feathers' barbs, springtails in the soil, crystal in rock, chloroplasts streaming, rotifers pulsing, and the shape of the air in the pines. And, if I try to keep my eye on quantum physics, if I try to keep up with astronomy and cosmology, and really believe it all, I might ultimately be able to make out the landscape of the universe. Why not? — Annie Dillard

Doesn't look like much, does he?" murmurs Frederick. "Hardly a couple of ounces of feathers and bones. But that bird can fly to Africa and back. Powered by bugs and worms and desire."
The wagtail hops from twig to twig. Werner rubs his aching eyes. It's just a bird.
"Ten thousand years ago," whispers Frederick, "they came through here in the millions. When this place was a garden, one endless garden from end to end. — Anthony Doerr

If you want to know how far gossip travels, do this - take a feather pillow up on a roof, slice it open, and let the feathers fly away on the wind. Then go and find every single feather and re-stuff the pillow. — Rebecca Pidgeon

But even if, as Johnson argues, power and dominance serve no meaningful purpose, they always incur costs. In biology, the cost can be painfully visible. During courtship, the argus cock pheasant spreads his large secondary wing feathers, which are decorated with beautiful eye spots; the bigger they are, the more they stimulate the female. And the longer the feathers, the more progeny the cock will produce. So the more beautiful cocks produce more descendants. That should be a competitive advantage. But the evolution of the argus pheasant has run itself into a blind alley because the most gorgeous cock has feathers so huge and unwieldy that they may cause him to be eaten by a predator, because he can't fly away fast enough. Oskar Heinroth, the teacher of Konrad Lorenz, commented: 'Next to the wings of the argus pheasant, the hectic life of western civilized man is the most stupid product of intra-specific selection! — Margaret Heffernan

Calliope feathers on the wings of my hopes and my dreams,
To some day fly high in the lavender sky.
A warm wind caresses my face,
And my heart overflows with grace.
The dawn breaks to herald a dazzling new day,
As I hover, zip, zoom The Hummingbird Way. — Sherri Lynea Gerek

Feathers," he says.

They ask this question at least once a week. He gives the same answer. Even over such a short time - two months, three? He's lost count - they've accumulated a stock of lore, of conjecture about him: Snowman was once a bird but he's forgotten how to fly and the rest of his feathers fell out, and so he is cold and he needs a second skin, and he has to wrap himself up. No: he's cold because he eats fish, and fish are cold. No: he wraps himself up because he's missing his man thing, and he doesn't want us to see. That's why he won't go swimming. Snowman has wrinkles because he once lived underwater and it wrinkled up his skin. Snowman is sad because the others like him flew away over the sea, and now he is all alone. — Margaret Atwood

Our Meat Facial today, Ms. Loeffler?" "Uhm, how's that." "You didn't get our offer in the mail? on special all this week, works miracles for the complexion - freshly killed, of course, before those enzymes've had a chance to break down, how about it?" "Well, I don't . . ." "Wonderful! Morris, kill . . . the chicken!" From the back room comes horrible panicked squawking, then silence. Maxine meantime is tilted back, eyelids aflutter, when - "Now we'll just apply some of this," wham! ". . . meat here, directly onto this lovely yet depleted face . . ." "Mmff . . ." "Pardon? (Easy, Morris!)" "Why is it . . . uh, moving around like that? Wait! is that a - are you guys putting a real dead chicken in my - aaahhh!" "Not quite dead yet!" Morris jovially informs the thrashing Maxine as blood and feathers fly everywhere. Each — Thomas Pynchon

Who in their dreams is not omnipotent? If in sleep I grow wings and fly high above the land, it does not mean I will awaken cloaked in feathers. We are gods in our dreams. Disaster strikes when we come to believe the same is true in our real lives. — Steven Erikson

How can you fly? I mean you have wings. Feathers. Did you know you have wings? — Sally Painter

Ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly. — Edward Young

Envoi
we had no voice
we had no name
we had no choice
we had one face
one face the same
we took the blame
it was no fair
but now w're here
we're all here too
the same as you
and now we follow
you, we find you
now, we call
to you to you
too wit too woo
too wit too woo
too woo
(The Maids sprout feathers, and fly away as owls.) — Margaret Atwood

When the time comes, for you to own the wings forever. Never hesitate to fight and stay on the ground, with the fear of losing few feathers. — Akshay Vasu

The truest vision of life I know is that bird in the Venerable Bede that flutters from the dark into a lighted hall, and after a while flutters out again into the dark. But Ruth is right. It is something
it can be everything
to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below; a fellow bird whom you can look after and find bugs and seeds for; one who will patch your bruises and straighten your ruffled feathers and mourn over your hurts when you accidentally fly into something you can't handle. (
from The Spectator Bird) — Wallace Stegner

They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, and I am simply a bird in their midst. — Erin Morgenstern

I've never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, 'don't try to fly too high,' or whether it might also be thought of as 'forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings. — Stanley Kubrick

When the rains make your feathers wet, don't sit and cry and don't wait for your wet feathers to get dry before you start to fly; start flying and your wet feathers will start drying! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

How can she who had torn his heart open at the waterworks with her art lie now like a human in his arms? Or stand catatonic in front of bananas on Eastern Avenue deciding which bunch to buy? Does this make her more magical? As if a fabulous heron in flight has fallen dead at his feet and he sees the further wonder of its meticulous construction. How did someone conceive of putting this structure of bones and feathers together, deciding on the weight of beak and skull, and give it the ability to fly? — Michael Ondaatje

Not a single person in that audience believes for a second that what I do up there is real," he says, gesturing in the general direction of the stage. "That's the beauty of it. Have you seen the contraptions these magicians build to accomplish the most mundane feats? They are a bunch of fish covered in feathers trying to convince the public they can fly, and I am simply a bird in their midst. The audience cannot tell the difference beyond knowing that I am better at it. — Erin Morgenstern

Whenever we leave the ground
And take to the sky
I'll smile as I'm gazing down
Cause I've always wonder why we won't need feathers to fly. — Owl City

I cut out construction paper feathers and taped them on my arms so I can fly! Pretty neat, huh? — Bill Watterson

Feel," said Driscoll, his hands and arms out loosely. "Remember how you used to run when you were a kid, and how the wind felt. Like feathers on your arms. You ran and thought any minute you'd fly, but you never quite did. — Ray Bradbury

As I watch, the sky fills with clouds of snow feathers from every kind of bird there ever was and even some that only exist in the imagination, like the bluebirds that fly over the rainbow. — Kate Atkinson

My brothers were still catching sparrows when my cousin told me to give him the baby bird. I didn't want to, but I took the squirming bird out of my pocket anyway. I wanted another look at it. It was so small. I don't think it could fly yet. My cousin plucked the bird from my palm and went off with it. I should never have taken it out of my pocket. When he returned, the birds were all burnt to a crisp. Their bones were popping out of their skin. I couldn't even tell which of the birds was mine. I looked at their burnt feathers and blackened skin and burst into tears. I cried for him to give me back my bird, but it was too late. My yelling must have irritate him, because he grabbed the smallest one and shoved it in my face, and said, 'Here it is.' When I took that charred baby bird from him, I felt the world crash down on me. It was the first time I had ever held something that had died. I love you as much as the sorrow I felt. — Kyung-Sook Shin

Don't depend on someone else's plumages to define your beauty. You have brighter and beautiful feathers. Just fly with them! — Israelmore Ayivor

If I were a bird that needs feathers to fly higher, my mother would be my strongest feather. She was extremely supportive. When I was one and a half, I took a whole handful of earthworms to bed with me. My mother said very quietly, "Jane, they will die if they leave the earth." And so, together, we put them back into the garden. — Jane Goodall

Why We Tell Stories
I
Because we used to have leaves
and on damp days
our muscles feel a tug,
painful now, from when roots
pulled us into the ground
and because our children believe
they can fly, an instinct retained
from when the bones in our arms
were shaped like zithers and broke
neatly under their feathers
and because before we had lungs
we knew how far it was to the bottom
as we floated open-eyed
like painted scarves through the scenery
of dreams, and because we awakened
and learned to speak — Lisel Mueller

None were left now to unname, and yet how close I felt to them when I saw one of them swim or fly or trot or crawl across my way or over my skin, or stalk me in the night, or go along beside me for a while in the day. They seemed far closer than when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier: so close that my fear of them and their fear of me became one same fear. And the attraction that many of us felt, the desire to feel or rub or caress one another's scales or skin or feathers or fur, taste one another's blood or flesh, keep one another warm, that attraction was now all one with the fear, and the hunter could not be told from the hunted, nor the eater from the food. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The sense of it may come with watching a flock of cedar waxwings eating wild grapes in the top of the woods on a November afternoon. Everything they do is leisurely. They pick the grapes with a curious deliberation, comb their feathers, converse in high windy whistles. Now and then one will fly out and back in a sort of dancing flight full of whimsical flutters and turns. They are like farmers loafing in their own fields on Sunday. Though they have no Sundays, their days are full of sabbaths. — Wendell Berry

Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee. — Katherine Mansfield

Thing is, I am not a big fan of hovers. I firmly believe that if man was meant to fly we'd have feathers, rubber bones, or better insurance coverage. — John Zakour

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

I am the hawk and there's blood in my feathers, but time is still turning they soon will be dry. And all those who see me and all who believe in me, share in the freedom I feel when I fly. — John Denver

JAMES HALE sat at a side-street noodle-stall. The stall was set-up underneath the shade of a row of fruit trees. He watched a pair of pigeons courting beneath a fig tree. The male's tail feathers were pushed up in self-promotion and his plumage was arrogantly puffed up. He danced his elaborate dance of love. The female didn't look impressed. She turned her back to him. Birds were like gangster rappers, Hale thought. They sang songs about how tough they were and how many other birds they'd nested. They were egomaniacs with inferiority complexes. Posers in a leafy street. The bastards flew at the first sign of danger. They couldn't make it on the ground. Hale hated birds with their merry chirps and their flimsy nests. Tweet. Tweet. Fucking. Tweet. The only thing Hale admired about them was the fact that they could fly. That would be cool. Right now, flying would be good. — James A. Newman

I love you, i love your smile your snarl your grin, your face when your sleeping.I love your hair streaming behind you as we fly, with the sunlight making it shine, if it doesn't have too much mud or blood in it, I love seeing your wings spreading out, white and brown and tan and speckled, and the tiny downy feathers right at the top of your shoulders. I love your eyes, whether they're cold or calculating or suspicious or laughing or warm, like when you look at me. — James Patterson