Giraffe Quotes & Sayings

What is the answer, Evan? Ms Granger asked.
Giraffe, I wanted to answer. It was on the tip of my tongue. Giraffe.
This was in math class, — David Levithan

I'm a giraffe. I even walk like a giraffe with a long neck and legs. It's a pretty dumb animal, mind you. — Sophia Loren

If you are a jackal, you will try to reassure. Jackals try to fix people in pain. They can't stand pain, but make matters worse by trying to get rid of it. Put on giraffe ears. Try to hear what they are feeling and needing. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

I don't care what color the parents are. I don't care if it's a giraffe and a fish living together. If they're raising children who believe they're honored and loved, that's all that's important. — Patricia Polacco

When we look to presumed sources of origin for competing evolutionary explanations of the giraffe's long neck, we find either nothing at all, or only the shortest of speculative conjectures. Length, of course, need not correspond with importance. Garrulous old Polonius , in a rare moment of clarity, reminded us that "brevity is the soul of wit" (and then immediately vitiated his wise observation with a flood of woolly words about Hamlet 's Madness. — Stephen Jay Gould

I have a toy giraffe on my bed. I've got photographs over my desk as well as a mask of a giraffe in my kitchen. I am totally hooked. — Joanna Lumley

Sometimes you just need to throw on your giraffe shirt and stick your neck out to help someone who needs it! — Brenda Lochinger

A bit of advice: never read a pop-up book about giraffes. — Sean Lock

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me? — Karen Blixen

I have people trying to kill me. A giraffe is low on my list of disturbances. — Janet Evanovich

We moved in bursts, with me on point and Marcus at the rear, everyone moving quietly except Sebastian, who was about as stealthy as a giraffe.

"Get quiet and low," I whispered to him.

He ducked his head, taking him to an almost invisible six-foot-two. — Veronica Rossi

The cyclist hit me, and it's vile after my life ends in the afterlife. Lots of incense, resin, apes and giraffe-tails--all acquired tastes. I don't like that kind of thing. — Diane Williams

NASA space scientists have been studying giraffe skin so they can apply what they learn from it to the construction of spacesuits. — Joanna Lumley

In the giraffe with a total height of 5 m., the heart is at a height of about 2.5 m., and it would be extremely interesting to know just how the giraffe avoids the development of filtration oedema in its long legs. — August Krogh

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things. — Pablo Picasso

On the neck of a giraffe a flea begins to believe in immortality. — Bill Vaughan

As a woman, it seems you can't just be a comedian; you're always classed as something else, too, whether that's 'beautiful,' 'pint-sized,' 'larger-than-life' or in my case, 'Hattie Jacques-esque,' 'the giraffe,' 'big.' — Miranda Hart

It's an incredibly difficult thing to bring a giraffe down. They can kill a lion with a single blow from their feet. — Joanna Lumley

Why would you want to go all the way to Africa and shoot a giraffe? I don't think you can eat him. I only shoot stuff I can eat. — Boo Weekley

The thing about owls is that they do sort of have this facial disc, which is unlike any other bird. They kind of have a face, more than like a dog or a giraffe. They have this weird, alien face that you can actually make expressive. — Zack Snyder

I was once kissed on the lips by a giraffe, and I don't think I've ever got over it. — Joanna Lumley

Wildlife is something which man cannot construct. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. Man can rebuild a pyramid, but he can't rebuild ecology, or a giraffe. — Joy Adamson

I don't know what to tell you other than the fact that a giraffe's heart weighs 22 pounds and that somebody once told me when flies fall in love, their entire brain is rewired to only know loving each other. When one of them dies, their memory becomes blank. I hope you never think about anything as much as I think about waking up next to you during a windstorm at 5 am. — Anymonous

I hear the Sophie Giraffe is great for teething. Another thing I really love right now is the Moby Baby Carrier. To me, it seems like a natural way to hold the baby close to you. I also love the burp cloths, bibs, and swaddle blankets from Aden and Anais. Their stuff is organic and pure. — Vanessa Lachey

My childhood was really comfortable and secure, but school was a nightmare. I was a lot taller than the other girls and they called me Gitte the giraffe. — Brigitte Nielsen

In addition to being flat-out hard to do, building effectiveness into an organization often comes into direct conflict with increasing efficiency. This is an unfortunate side effect of optimization, first noted by the geneticist R. A. Fisher, and now referred to as Fisher's fundamental theorem: "The more highly adapted an organism becomes, the less adaptable it is to any new change." Fisher's example was the giraffe. It is highly adapted to food found up among the tree branches, but so unadaptable to a new situation that it can not even pick up a peanut from the ground at the zoo. The more optimized an organism (organization) is, the more likely that the slack necessary to help it become more effective has been eliminated. — Tom DeMarco

The women paused to regard the taxidermied creatures with awe.
Predictably, Pandora went forward with her hand outstretched.
"Pandora," Lady Berwick snapped, "if you molest the exhibits, we will not be returning to the museum."
Turning, Pandora gave her a pleading glance. "A giraffe is right there - it once roamed the African savannah - don't you want to know how it feels?"
"Indeed not."
"There's no sign that says we can't."
"The railing implies it."
"But the giraffe is so close," Pandora said woefully. "If you would look the other way for five seconds, I could reach out and touch it so easily . . . and then I wouldn't have to wonder anymore — Lisa Kleypas

My big studly giraffe."
"My little horny monkey. — Jim Provenzano

Why didn't evolution make a giraffe good at carpentry so it could build a ladder? — Karl Pilkington

If I know a song of Africa, - I thought, - of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Would the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I had had on, or the children invent a game in which my name was, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or would the eagles of Ngong look out for me? I — Karen Blixen

Time often is forgiving and dismissive of the influences, because they recede. We look at Sgt. Pepper and we go "wow! How did they ever think that up?" but of course, if you got into Paul McCartney's bedroom, found his record collection at the time, you would find out. But the clues are gone. It's like evolution: there are certain pure situations that hang around longer, but the ones that got them there don't have time to leave fossils. We have a giraffe, we have a horse. But where's the horse with the long neck? The link species disappear. — Michka Assayas

A few hours later, lying on a mat during rest time, Vladimir embraced the tiny curled-up creature beside him, his first best buddy, just as Mother had promised. Maybe tomorrow they could go to the Piskaryovka mass grave together with their grandmothers and lay flowers for their dead. Maybe they would even be inducted into the Red Pioneers side by side. What good fortune that he and Lionya were so alike and that neither of them had siblings ... Now they would have each other! It was as if Mother had created someone just for him, as if she had guessed how lonely he had been in his sick bed with his stuffed giraffe, the months spinning away in twilight gloom until it was June again, time to go down to sunny Yalta to watch the Black Sea dolphins jump for joy. — Gary Shteyngart

I'm going to show you a technology today which takes insults and criticisms out of the airwaves. (Marshall puts on giraffe ears) With this technology, it will be impossible for you to hear criticisms, harsh remarks, or insults. All you can hear is what all people are ever saying, "please" and "thank you". What used to sound like criticism, judgment, or blame, you will see, are really tragic, suicidal expressions of "please". — Marshall B. Rosenberg

A giraffe is so much a lady that one refrains from thinking of her legs, but remembers her as floating over the plains in long garb, draperies of morning mist her mirage. — Isak Dinesen

All you do is to look / At a page in this book / Because that's where we always will be. / No book ever ends / When it's full of your friends / The Giraffe and the Pelly and me. — Roald Dahl

I am the soul brother to everything that lives, to the giraffe and to the crocodile as much as to man. — Alain De Botton

This is the greatest discovery of the scientific enterprise: You take hydrogen gas, and you leave it alone, and it turns into rosebushes, giraffes, and humans. — Brian Swimme

It was a kiss that had sneaked in through an open window, a kiss that lay folded in a paper giraffe, in the silences between 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, in the pits of the mini mangoes and here, now, at least, it was set free. And the rightness of it, the feeling of longing and belonging, made me want to hold on to it forever. I wanted Damian to keep kissing me, keep kissing, keep kissing, until every other kiss had been erased, until this was the only kiss. — Leylah Attar

And here's the good part: He got a tongue could measure twenty-one inches. Bet Mrs. Giraffe likes that one. — Janet Evanovich

It could be simply an accident of fate that our brains are too weak to understand themselves. Think of the lowly giraffe, for instance, whose brain is obviously far below the level required for self-understanding - yet it is remarkably similar to our brain. — Ray Kurzweil

This is Deirdre," said Addison. "She's an emu-raffe, which is a bit like a donkey and a giraffe put together, only with fewer legs and a peevish temper. She's a terrible sore loser at cards," he added in a whisper. "Never play an emu-raffe at cards. Say hello, Deirdre! — Ransom Riggs

Are you aware, Mr Mayor, then when casually scrying the streets of London, you stand out like a giraffe on roller skates, yes? — Kate Griffin

It's just that the chaos has changed shape. The giraffe and the bear have traded hats, and the bear's switched scarves with the zebra. — Haruki Murakami

If a giraffe starts eating an African acacia, the tree releases a chemical into the air that signals that a threat is at hand. As the chemical drifts through the air and reaches other trees, they "smell" it and are warned of the danger. Even before the giraffe reaches them, they begin producing toxic chemicals. Insect pests are dealt with slightly differently. The saliva of leaf-eating insects can be "tasted" by the leaf being eaten. In response, the tree sends out a chemical signal that attracts predators that feed on that particular leaf-eating insect. Life in the slow lane is clearly not always dull. But — Peter Wohlleben

That's the thing about my father. You never know when he's hiding a giant surprise giraffe head from you. — Jenny Lawson

I promise.
For the other side of the card, I put the giraffe and penguin on it and wrote:
To think and try not to over think.
To breathe, but not hyperventilate.
To try to envision the best, and not dwell on the worst.
To call you when I'm in trouble.
To not do anything permanent on a situation that might be temporary. — Shirley Miranda

In his anti-Darwinian book ... (and eponymously named The Neck of the Giraffe ), Francis Hitching tells the story ... "The need to survive by reaching ever higher for food is, like so many Darwinian explanations of its kind, little more than a post hoc speculation." Hitching is quite correct, but he rebuts a fairy story that Darwin was far too smart to tell - even though the tale later entered our high school texts as a "classic case" nonetheless. — Stephen Jay Gould

One of these days I'm going to be surrounded by so many young gifted athletes. There must be something in the water, because everyone's kid is a prodigy of some kind, except for mine. Gomer is a bit of a lumberer on the soccer field, and when Adolpha practices her ballet, she has the grace of a baby giraffe. They're so like their mother. I couldn't be prouder of my little underachievers. — Jen Mann

My favourite animal is the koala, but his life would be boring. I would rather be a giraffe so that I could contemplate the beauty of Africa. — Caterina Murino

Books by Roald Dahl The BFG Boy: Tales of Childhood Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Danny the Champion of the World Dirty Beasts The Enormous Crocodile Esio Trot Fantastic Mr. Fox George's Marvelous Medicine The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me Going Solo James and the Giant Peach The Magic Finger Matilda The Minpins The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes Skin and Other Stories The Twits The Umbrella Man and Other Stories The Vicar of Nibbleswicke The Witches The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More — Roald Dahl

He was in his mid-thirties, tall and pale and thin, with long, sandy hair and rimless glasses, dressed in brown polyester pants, cheap brown shoes, and a light tan shirt. He looked like someone had put a wig on a giraffe and run it through the local Target. — John Connolly

The distinctive features of the world's civilisations are not simply and solely the giraffe and the city of Rome, as the children may perhaps have been led to imagine on the first evening, but also the elephant and the country of Denmark, beside many other things. Yes, everyday brought its new animal and its new country, its new kings and its new gods, its quota of those tough little figures which seem to have no significance, but are nevertheless endowed with a life and a value of their own, and may be added together or subtracted from one another at will. And finally poetry, which is grater than any country ; poetry with its bright palaces. — Halldor Laxness

Today, I have seen a lonely giraffe attacked and eaten by ten lions. This cannot be God's Order; this is obviously Devil's Order! God is not here, even though the fools claim the opposite! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

When I'm feeling sad, or lonely, and I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know where I'm going, I imagine the Cool Awesome Future Version of Myself just telling my present self, "It's okay. You just gotta grab that giraffe by the ears and ride it on out." — Jenna Marbles

A man was taken to the Zoo and shown the giraffe. After gazing at it a little in silence: 'I don't believe it,' he said. — Dorothy L. Sayers

You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream. — Frank Zappa

There's a guy here with a third of a dead giraffe in the back of his truck and it looks pretty messed up, so I thought of you." I considered responding with "Who is this?" but it was perfectly obvious who it was and I wasn't sure if I should be insulted or perhaps flattered that my dad knew me so well. — Jenny Lawson

Antonina woke in the night to help midwife an animal like a giraffe (always tricky because the mother gives birth standing up, the calf falls headfirst, and the mother doesn't want help anyway). This — Diane Ackerman

Sometimes facing opportunity is like staring at the knees of a giraffe. — Laurie Beth Jones

In a Giraffe institution, the head nurse job would be to serve the nurses, not to control them. Teachers are there to serve the students, not control them. — Marshall B. Rosenberg

Give me a black man, a white woman, a giraffe, a zebra anything but another white man! That last one f***ed up my roof! — Chris Rock

I would be a giraffe because I just want to experience what a sore throat and being a giraffe feels like. It would be really uncomfortable walking around in the Sahara and being like, 'I really need, like, 15 lozenges for my giraffe body.' — Charlie Puth

We need to get home and put some ointments and ice on the stings. Vinegar will make it worse, so if you thought Giraffe Boy could pee on you, you're shit out of luck."
She agrees as if prepared for this - the punishment, the medication, the swelling, the pain that hurts her now and the pain that will hurt her later. She seems okay with my disapproval. She's gotten her story, after all, and she's beginning to see how much easier physical pain is to tolerate than emotional pain. I'm unhappy that she's learning this at such a young age.
"The hospital will have ointments and ice," she says. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

Imagine the first Burmese "giraffe woman"; she was probably a local icon in her village in the way she put the rings around her neck to sell her craft. Then she became a celebrity, so all of the wannabes started following her in that uncomfortable and unhealthy trend. But is that so different from Pamela Anderson? I don't think so. — Noma Bar

I have always been slightly suspicious of the theory of evolution because of its ability to account for any property of living beings (the long neck of the giraffe, for example). I have therefore tried to see whether biological discoveries over the last thirty years or so fit in with Darwin's theory. I do not think that they do. To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all. — Henry Lipson

Am I good enough?
Trust. — Tom

Gonzo leaps like a giraffe and grabs it. — Jerry Coleman

To the steampunk community, including artisans like Richard "Doc" Nagy (sadly lost to us) and musicians like Professor Elemental, Steam Powered Giraffe, Vagabond Opera, and Abney Park. You are an endless source of joy and inspiration, — Lisa Mantchev

The tall form of the young professor of mental science discussing on the landing a case of conscience with his class like a giraffe cropping high leafage among a herd of antelopes — James Joyce

The place smelled male, not the metal-and-soap maleness of a locker room nor the malt-and-sawdust maleness of an old-time corner saloon, but the leather-and-oiled-wood maleness of a city club, as finished and self-consistent as the ash of a fine cigar. At sight of the skirted figure stalking him, the sole visible attendant took refuge behind a showcase; surely a giraffe, were it a male one, would have startled him less. — Ellery Queen

The man who believes in giraffes would swallow anything. — Adrian Mitchell

I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe. — Richard Gere

No Child Left Behind ... is a giraffe with an elephant's body ... You can't take the vision of Ted Kennedy and merge it to the public policy of George Bush and come out with anything that works. — Steve Rauschenberger

I'd hate to be a giraffe with a sore throat. — Mitch Hedberg

Negotiating the Goodreads interface is like returning a giraffe's eyelashes to their follicles after a Napalm attack using only a rolling pin and a bucket. — Steve Whitmore

He grinned at her. "Well, then I have a bit of a confession to make. Colin said some things to me and the sound of his voice irritated me so I had one of those clowns with the big red noses in the paediatric wing turn him into a balloon animal. A giraffe I'm afraid. Sad fate it was," Alessandro joked with no sign of remorse at all. — E. Jamie

When Andy Carroll first appeared on the scene he was a tall skinny kid and his coordination was all over the place. He reminded me of a giraffe. — Glenn Roeder

But telling a giraffe killer that I need someone is not an option. — Nikki Godwin

A brick could be used like a giraffe could be used as a neck warmer. You could also use my foreskin. — Jarod Kintz

He looked at her in the darkness, at this woman who was everything to him-mother, Africa, wisdom, understanding, good things to eat, pumpkins, chicken, the white sky across the endless, endless bush, and the giraffe that cried, giving its tears for women to daub on their baskets; O Botswana, my country, my place. — Alexander McCall Smith

For years I believed they loved me for my voice, my stage presence, my courageous life. 'Incomparable,' they said. 'Divine.' I am the goddesses on the ceilings of the antechambers at Versailles, the statues in the gardens. That's what they see in me. The huntress. The peacemaker. The Amazon. The Muse. Victory. Glory. War. I am divine. But now I wonder if I was anything more than some exotic creature in the King's pleasure gardens - not a lion, and surely not a baboon, but perhaps - yes - a giraffe. Unlikely. Ungainly. Unique. Beautiful in parts but not particularly attractive as a concept. Alien. But compelling, nevertheless. — Kelly Gardiner

Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what's possible Could reason half the jungle out of being. — John Ciardi

Another Thing I'm Sick of Hearing:
If I started that gay rights group,
I must be gay.
So if i start an animal rights group,
what does that make me?
A giraffe? — James Howe

If a queen comes to America, crowds fill the station squares, and attendant British journalists rejoice, 'You see: the American Cousins are as respectful to Royalty as we are.'
But the Americans have read of queens since babyhood. they want to see one queen, once, and if another came to town next week, with twice as handsome a crown, she would not draw more than two small boys and an Anglophile.
Americans want to see one movie star, one giraffe, one jet plance, one murder, but only one. They run up a skyscraper or the fame of generals and evangelists and playwrights in one week and tear them all down in an hour, and the mark of excellence everywhere is 'under new management'. — Sinclair Lewis

That's just how time travel looks like to the untrained eye. The reason why there aren't more travelers is that your average physicist refuses to be eaten by a giraffe in the name of science. — Bradley Sands

I remember once reading that it is still not understood how the giraffe manages to pump an adequate blood supply all the way up to its head; but it is hard to imagine that anyone would conclude tht giraffes do not have long necks. At least not anyone who had ever been to a zoo — Robert Solow

You need that guy like a giraffe needs strep throat. — Ann Landers

I remember at The Quilted Giraffe, when I was when working there to try out for the sous-chef position. I really wanted it, and the woman working the line next to me kept messing up and making me look bad. The last day of my kitchen trail, I just said to her very quietly, 'Do me a favor and get out of my way, because I want this job.' — Tom Colicchio

People are the only animals that drink the milk of the mother of another species. All other animals stop drinking milk altogether after weaning. It is unnatural for a dog to nurse from a mother giraffe; it is just as unnatural for a human being to drink the milk of a cow. — Michael Klaper

A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus; and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe. — Alain De Botton

Jason said, "Yes. Gerard T. Giraffe."
What does the 'T' stand for?"
'The. — Douglas Coupland

I have friends who come to the Australia Zoo, and it's just, instead of playing video games, we get to hug and kiss a giraffe or walk a tiger. — Bindi Irwin

Pliny suggested that the ostrich, then newly discovered, was the result of a cross between a giraffe and a gnat. (It would, I suppose, have to be a female giraffe and a male gnat.) In practice there must be many such crosses which have not been
attempted because of a certain understandable lack of motivation. — Carl Sagan

No matter what is doing the creating, I have to say that the giraffe and the rhinoceros are ridiculous. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Sure. Happy to do it,' I say. In terms of level of truthfulness, that statement would rank with something like, 'Damn, I'm going to be traveling to Saturn that day to go giraffe hunting. — David Rosenfelt

Before I die I want to have kids. Live in London. Own a pet giraffe. Skydive. Divide by zero. Play the piano. Speak French. Write a book. Travel to a different planet. Be a better dad than mine was. Feel good about myself. Go to New York City. Know equality. Live. — Jennifer Niven

How would you lift a giraffe with one hand? It doesn't matter as you won't find any one-handed giraffes! *** — Various

I saw a giraffe with a short neck
That was sad
Or a deer — Bo Burnham

Maybe the idea of the world as flat isn't a tribal memory or an archetypal memory, but something far older
a fox memory, a worm memory, a moss memory.
Memory of leaping or crawling or shrugging rootlet by rootlet forward, across the flatness of everything.
To perceive of the earth as round needed something else
standing up!
that hadn't yet happened.
What a wild family! Fox and giraffe and wart hog, of course. But these also: bodies like tiny strings, bodies like blades and blossoms! Cord grass, Christmas fern, soldier moss! And here comes grasshopper, all toes and knees and eyes, over the little mountains of the dust.
When I see the black cricket in the woodpile, in autumn, I don't frighten her. And when I see the moss grazing upon the rock, I touch her tenderly,
sweet cousin. — Mary Oliver

If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe ... No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe. — Annie Dillard