Mine That Bird Quotes & Sayings

Two birds fly past. They are needed somewhere. — Robert Bly

For the planet's sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we're doomed. — Susan Blackmore

You taste of the cool water that hides deep in a stream. You taste of the night air, soft and scented and mysterious. The taste of you drives me wild. I want to be with you, be inside you, shout to the world that you are mine at the same time I want to keep you hidden where you will exist only for me. You make me feel invincible, little bird. — Katie MacAlister

In the shining hours of togetherness
Light of the morning on your eyes
Bridge to immortality sang a bird of paradise
Peaceful we laughed on the banks
Where breathed freedom in the eternal river — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Acquiring the trick of listening to birds will teach you how better to enjoy life and how better to endure it — Simon Barnes

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

He recited, "My mother was a bird of fire. She bore me swaddled over the ruined cities of my sisters. We rained a sea of flame upon our brother, and brought them aloft again. Transformed. Our mothers burned the cities. We keep the ruins. — Kameron Hurley

I like to think about society as being a flock of birds: There seems to be a common consciousness in different time periods, and the new common consciousness reacts to the old standards. — Penelope Spheeris

A bird in the open never looks Like its picture in the birdie books - Or if it once did, it has changed its plumage, And plunges you back into ignorant gloomage. — Ogden Nash

When nature made the blue-bird she wished to propitiate both the sky and the earth, so she gave him the color of the one on his back and the hue of the other on his breast. — John Burroughs

I'm definitely a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd. — Brad Bird

When I asked him the meaning of life, Dr. Webb got very quiet and then told me life has no one meaning, it only has whatever meaning each of us puts on our own life. I'll tell you now that I still don't know the meaning of mine. And Lucas Cader, with all his brains and talent, doesn't know the meaning of his, either. But I'll tell you the meaning of all this. The meaning of some bird showing up and some boy disappearing and you knowing all about it. The meaning of this was not to save you, but to warn you instead. To warn you of confusion and delusion and assumption. To warn you of psychics and zombies and ghosts of your lost brother. To warn you of Ada Taylor and her sympathy and mothers who wake you up with vacuums. To warn you of two-foot-tall birds that say they can help, but never do. — John Corey Whaley

Sonnet IV"

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of spring.

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

A wonderful bird is the pelican His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week, But I'm damned if I see how the helican. — Dixon Lanier Merritt

We all leave something behind us. A bird in flight will lose a snow-white feather, and flowers in the hedgerows will drop their petals. And people? We leave memories. Footprints in the dust and fingerprints on everything we've touched, warmth in every hand we've held. We become stories that are spoken of, for always. And in this way, we carry on. — Susan E. Fletcher

Their song reminds me of a child's neighborhood rallying cry - ee-ock-ee - with a heartfelt warble at the end. But it is their call that is especially endearing. The towhee has the brass and grace to call, simply and clearly, "tweet". I know of no other bird that stoops to literal tweeting. — Annie Dillard

A man could not be in two places at the same time unless he were a bird. — Boyle Roche

The weight of his fingers on mine, like a bird landing on a branch. It was the drop of a match. I did not see that we were surrounded by tinder until I felt it burst into flames. — Hannah Kent

Since birds took flight, they were closer to the spirit world than man was, so ignoring a message from a bird might mean missing some warning or promise from powers greater than oneself. — Jodi Picoult

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I've shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I'll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful. — Maggie Smith

A bird no one wants. he's mine. my bird of pain. he doesn't sing. that bird swaying on the bough. — Charles Bukowski

I have read in books that we are called 'caged birds'. I cannot speak for others, but I had so much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the universe- at least that is what I then felt. — Rabindranath Tagore

Baghdad is altogether built of chrome-yellow kiln-dried bricks. — Isabella Bird

There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science. — Andrew Bird

...you have to just go on. It's sort of like a bird flying into a plate glass window. And then you just sort of pick yourself up, shake yourself off, and check for anything broken, and go back to work. — Sally Mann

The bird That glads the night had cheer'd the listening groves with sweet complainings. — William Somervile

Hey, Blue Bird." His voice was lower, his words raspier than before. "Sorry it took me so long to make it back. — Nicole Williams

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

I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing -
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears -
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.
Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown -
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return. — Emily Dickinson

It may not always be so; and i say that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch his heart, as mine in time not far away; if on another's face your sweet hair lay in such a silence as i know,or such great writhing words as, uttering overmuch, stand helplessly before the spirit at bay; if this should be, i say if this should be- you of my heart, send me a little word; that i may go unto him, and take his hands, saying, Accept all happiness from me. Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird sing terribly afar in the lost lands. — E. E. Cummings

Lark of memory
it is your blood that is flowing
and not mine
Lark of memory
I have tightened my fist
Lark of memory
dead bird of mist
you should not have come
to eat from my hand
the grains of oblivion. — Jacques Prevert

As a devout Baptist, she believed it was a sin to pray for anything for yourself. You ought to pray only for strength to bear whatever the Lord saw fit to send you, she thought. I was never able to follow this advice, for although I would often feel a sense of uneasiness over the tone of my prayers, I was the kind of person who prayed frantically-Please, God, please, please, PLEASE let Ross MacVey like me better than Mavis. — Margaret Laurence

Then I will not repine
Knowing that bird of mine
Though flown shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return. — Emily Dickinson

The snowy owl has eyes that look just like mine, especially when it widens them. And while I stand there, staring at it, lowering my sunglasses, something unspoken passes between me and the bird - there's this weird kind of tension, a bizarre pressure, that fuels the following, which starts, happens, ends, very quickly. — Bret Easton Ellis

Her laugh was a travesty. Which made sense because in a way, so was his apology. But what was he supposed to say?
I want you until I hurt. Until I sweat.
I love you with a raw, bleeding need that I've never understood.
And all I know for sure is that you can never be mine. — Jessica Bird

I know by now that the love of ghosts is not expectant, and I am coming to that. This Virgie of mine, this new found "Virge," is the last care of my life, and I know the ignorance I must cherish him in. I must care for him as I care for a wildflower or a singing bird, no terms, no expectation, as finally I care for Port William and the ones who have been here with me. I want to leave here openhanded, with only the ancient blessing, 'Good-bye. My love to you all. — Wendell Berry

If I actually supervised Felix," he said, "then I'm ready now to take charge of volcanoes, the tides, and the migrations of bird and lemmings. The man was a force of nature no mortal could possibly control. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

In nature everything is valuable, everything has its place. The rose, the daisy, the lark, the squirrel, each is different but beautiful. Each has its own expression. Each flower its' own fragrance. Each bird its' own song. So you too have your own unique melody. — Diane Dreher

Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man. — Robert Green Ingersoll

When the soul opens its shell, it liberates the fundamental center that is the spirit. And once born, the spirit spreads its wings and flies with all the freedom of love, going to nestle in the heart where resides true Divine love. Love is God in full flight, and it is found inside our own selves. It is the bird coming back to its nest, the spirit returning to its reality, and the creature to the Creator, all coming together in the domain of the One who is and always was. — Alex Polari De Alverga

The pigeon here is a beautiful bird, of a delicate bronze colour, tinged with pink about the neck, and the wings marked with green and purple. — William John Wills

Years should be nothing to you. Who asked you to count them or consider them? In the world of wild Nature, time is measured by seasons only-the bird does not know how old it is-the rose-tree does not count its birthdays! — Marie Corelli

A duck's nest was found today near the trail on the dry open prairie with as far as could be seen no water or marsh near. The bird flew off but could not tell what species. The eggs nine originally. — George Mercer Dawson

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

With the words, a lot of things start with questions. Some word kind of piques my interest, and I love the way it sounds, but I really don't know what it means. And I honestly don't care for a while. — Andrew Bird

You put his brain in a bird, the bird would fly backwards -Secret Life of the Bees — Sue Monk Kidd

If one's memories of Baghdad women were only of those to be seen in the streets, they would be of leathery, wrinkled faces, prematurely old, figures which have lost all shape, and henna-stained hands crinkled and deformed by toil. — Isabella Bird

When you train your thoughts to dissolve as they arise, they will cross your mind like a bird crosses the sky
without leaving a trace. — Julietta Suzuki

As the highly colored birds do not fly around in the dull, leaden plains of a sandy desert, but amid all the settings of nature's leaves and blossoms, and lights and shades - nature's framework of their picture - so there are truths which do not appear well in arid fields of philosophic inquiry, but which demand the colored air and the bowers of poetry to be the setting of their charms. — David Swing

Faith without works is like a bird without wings; though she may hop with her companions on earth, yet she will never fly with them to heaven. — Francis Beaumont

I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

A book is a delicate friend, a white bird, an exquisite being, afraid of water.
Darling things! Afraid of water, of fire, They shiver in the wind. Clumsy, crude human fingers leave bruises on them that'll never fade! Never!
Some people touch books without washing their hands!
Some underline things in ink!
Some even tear pages out! — Tatyana Tolstaya

A little bird moves a mountain of sand one grain at a time it picks up one grain every million years and when the mountain has been moved the bird puts it all back again and that's how long eternity is and that's a very long time to be dead — Jenny Downham

Quietly, like a night bird, floating, soaring, wingless. We glide from shore to shore, curving and falling but not quite touching; Earth: a distant memory seen in an instant of repose, crescent shaped, ethereal, beautiful, I wonder which part is home, but I know it doesn't matter ... the bond is there in my mind and memory; Earth: a small, bubbly balloon hanging delicately in the nothingness of space. — Alfred Worden

No, I don't think I've been defiled. But I haven't been saved, either. There's nobody who can save me right now, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. The world looks totally empty to me. Everything I see around me looks fake. The only thing thay isn't fake is that gooshy thing inside me. — Haruki Murakami

Prep school, public school, university: these now tedious influences standardize English autobiography, giving the educated Englishman the sad if fascinating appearance of a stuffed bird of sly and beady eye in some old seaside museum. The fixation on school has become a class trait. It manifests itself as a mixture of incurious piety and parlour game. — V.S. Pritchett

If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. — Anthony De Mello

Correlation across replicated environments adds a whole new dimension of complexity of the environment, ... You would expect most application groups to have the same set of policies. In reality, you have differences in policies. That reflects back to that whole process of manual storing in the environment. — Andrew Bird

I feel like tiny bird with a big song! — Jerry Van Amerongen

Well I'm still working on The Incredibles. So I'm going to take a little time off. I've got a couple of tricks up my sleeve. I'm not ready to talk about them yet, but expect the unexpected. — Brad Bird