Pecking Quotes & Sayings

Here's what turns a successful hierarchy into one that impedes progress: when too many people begin, subconsciously, to equate their own value and that of others with where they fall in the pecking order. Thus, they focus their energies on managing upward while treating people beneath them on the organizational chart poorly. The people I have seen do this seem to be acting on animal instinct, unaware of what they are doing. — Ed Catmull

The women look each other over as they chat, measuring thighs, bellies, hips, and asses, taking into account body types and recent pregnancies. They silently evaluate and pass judgment, realigning themselves in the pecking order. It's a brutal business, being a woman. Wendy sucks in her gut and crosses her legs, pointing her toes like a ballerina in a last-ditch effort to coax her calf muscle out of hiding. She has our mother's legs, sheathed in thick, smooth skin that defies definition. — Jonathan Tropper

Part of the true luxury of "earned laziness" are the braggin rights that come along with being purposefully and publicly lazy. It is a badge of distinction, an emblem of success, without having to say too much about it. It labels us, affords us kudos, and raises our profile in the "pecking order" of our fellow troglodytes. It says to others, "See, I've done so well that I can afford to do nothing at all whenever I so choose! — Al Gini

And birds in the hand such an irritating way of pecking your fingers, shitting in your palm, and then flying away. — Stephen King

Jealousy, that diseased crow pecking at your heart. — Stewart Stafford

Here, and it goes on to appear now, she comes, a peacefugle, a parody's bird, a peri potmother, a pringlpik in the ilandiskippy, with peewee and powwows in beggybaggy on her bickybacky and a flick flask fleckflinging its pixylighting pacts' huemeramybows, picking here, pecking there, pussypussy plunderpussy. — James Joyce

Imagine a flock of pigeons in a corn field. Imagine that ninety-nine of them, instead of pecking the corn they need and using it as they need it, start to collect all they can into one big heap. Imagine that they do not leave much corn for themselves, but save this big heap of corn on behalf of the vilest and worst in their flock. Imagine that they all sit in a circle and watch this one pigeon, who squanders and wastes this wealth. And then imagine that they rush at a weak pigeon who is the most hungry among them who darest to take one grain from the heap without permission, and they punish him. If you can imagine this, then you can understand the day-to-day behavior of mankind. - WILLIAM PALEY — Leo Tolstoy

A substance so far beyond their ken that they might have been carrion birds pecking at the eyes of god. — Laini Taylor

A simple pecking order has always characterized mankind's relationship to waste: The wealthy throw out what they do not want, the poor scavenge what they can, and whatever remains is left to rot. — Dan Fagin

Then you pray the prayer that is the essence of every ritual: God, I have no hope. I am torn to shreds. You are my first and my last and only refuge. Don't do daily prayers like a bird pecking, moving its head up and down. Prayer is an egg. Hatch out the total helplessness inside. - RUMI — Tim Farrington

We die, you die. You die, we survive. I think there's a pecking order in that, don't you? — Lindsay J. Pryor

...each chime pecking a pinhole in the sheeted dark until the last layers shred completely and the light pours in and in. — Monica Wood

Quoyle remembered purple-brown seckle pears the size and shape of figs, his father taking the meat off with pecking bites, the smell of fruit in their house, litter of cores and peels in the ashtrays, the grape cluster skeletons, peach stones like hens' brains on the windowsill, the glove of banana peel on the car dashboard. In the sawdust on the basement workbench galaxies of seeds and pits, cherry stones, long white date pits like spaceships ... The hollowed grapefruit skullcaps, cracked globes of tangerine peel. — Annie Proulx

It's funny, but on a set there's a pecking order. There's a caste system, you know? It goes from the star down to the extra. That includes the crew as well. I've never liked that. — Peter Jason

In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture. — Jerry A. Coyne

It's not like I want to get discovered, exactly, the way you hear actresses getting picked off at diners. It's more about my own road to discovery like pecking my way out of a shell. I just want to roll deep with a pack of talented bastards. Doesn't everybody? - Esme from Sister Mischief — Laura Goode

I really loved it because it really informed his way of seeing my character and the story. If you look closely he always had this metaphor of an egg, of a little chick pecking her way out of a shell, and in one scene in the kitchen there are all these white plates on a wall and then in the middle there is a yellow plate so even that looks like an egg. And a lot of the furniture was almost sculpted in that way as well. It was really cool to see that. — Mia Wasikowska

The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at. — Jonathan Swift

That was Eisman's logic: the logic of Wall Street's pecking order. Goldman Sachs was the big kid who ran the games in this neighborhood. Merrill Lynch was the little fat kid assigned the least pleasant roles, just happy to be a part of things. The game, as Eisman saw it, was crack the whip. He assumed Merrill Lynch had taken its assigned place at the end of the chain. On — Michael Lewis

They are closing the mine in two weeks, they say. Six days a week bumping down in the gondola, pecking out the rocks and hauling them back up, doing it again the next day for twenty-seven years, one cave-in, three thin raises, and a failed strike. Where am I going to go every day, what am I going to do with all that sunshine? — Lou Beach

As an actor, I have casting issues. I'm a minority. I don't have trouble making a living, but as far as being on the food chain of the pecking order of actors, I'm not at the top of it. With the jobs that I do, there are always control issues with directors and producers. — BD Wong

I have seen many cases like N. during the five years I've been in practice. I sometimes picture these unfortunates as men and women being pecked to death by predatory birds. The birds are invisible - at least until a psychiatrist who is good, or lucky, or both, sprays them with his version of Luminol and shines the right light on them - but they are nevertheless very real. The wonder is that so many OCDs manage to live productive lives, just the same. They work, they eat (often not enough or too much, it's true), they go to movies, they make love to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their wives and husbands ... and all the time those birds are there, clinging to them and pecking away little bits of flesh. — Stephen King

Silence is one of worst, most vocal enemies, yet people go through many bouts of depression not sharing what is happening. People don't understand that, but as someone who suffers from it, I can tell you that it's difficult to be objective about the gray.
I described depression to my therapist as a misty fog that surrounds me, heavy on my shoulders, pervading everything and nothing at all. I liken depression to a bird stealing into the depths of your soul, pecking at your disposition until nothing is left.
And that is when you break into pieces. — Rachel Thompson

And though you understand the pecking order and respect the judge - and even if the judge says "Great argument, Counselor Kaling, the court concurs" - you also just want to not have to plead your case all the time. I wanted to be the judge, jury, and executive producer. (See what I did there?) — Mindy Kaling

There is something improbably about the silence in the [subway] carriage, considering how naturally gregarious we are as a species. Still, how much kinder it is for the commuters to pretend to be absorbed in other things, rather than revealing the extent to which they are covertly evaluating, judging, condemning and desiring each other. A few venture a glance here and there, as furtively as birds pecking grain. But only if the train crashed would anyone know for sure who else had been in the carriage, what small parts of the nation's economy had been innocuously seated across the aisle just before the impact: employees of hotels, government ministries, plastic-surgery clinics, fruit nurseries and greetings-card companies. — Alain De Botton

This, no doubt, was the call 33 had heard. Bored with his balanced diet of maize and maple peas, tired of the pecking order of the loft and the predictability of each day - the bird had wanted out; wanted up and away. A day of high life; of food that had to be chased a little, and tasted all the better for that; of the companionship of wild things. All this went through Cal's head, in a vague sort of way, while he watched the circling flocks. — Clive Barker

See, we're intellectual equals. I am as smart as your mother, and she is as smart as me. This is a problem. There's no pecking order. A relationship is like anything else. It needs a leader and a follower. — Marjorie Celona

superintendents, chief inspectors, inspectors, sergeants and constables. If an officer works for CID (Criminal Investigation Department), then he or she will carry the prefix D (for Detective). A DCI is a detective chief inspector, DI is a detective inspector, DS a detective sergeant, and DC a detective constable. Officers not assigned to CID would wear a uniform. (Rebus sometimes refers to these unfortunates as "woolly suits.") Lowest in the pecking order are the PC (police constable) and WPC (woman police constable). — Ian Rankin

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order ... we take what we know a little too seriously. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I don't run for trains." Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that's what you are seeking. You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Very hesitantly, the pheasant started pecking at the dung, and lo on the very first day it reached the first branch of the tree. In a fortnight's time, it reached the topmost branch of the tree. It just went and sat on the topmost branch and just enjoyed the scenery. The old farmer saw a fat old pheasant on the top of the tree. He took out his shotgun and shot him off the tree. So the moral of the story is: even bullshit can get you to the top, but never lets you stay there. [Everybody laughs] So — Jaggi Vasudev

I suspect in most companies, the public relations person is down at No. 20 in the pecking order. But here, he is fighting incredibly important battles. If a negative story starts running away with itself in the press and is not dealt with fast, it can badly damage the brand, and so we put enormous weight on our PR people. — Richard Branson

Inwardly we are whirlpools of misery and mischief and therefore to be regarded outwardly as a great figure is very gratifying. This craving for position, for prestige, for power, to be recognized by society as being outstanding in some way, is a wish to dominate others, and this wish to dominate is a form of aggression. The saint who seeks a position in regard to his saintliness is as aggressive as the chicken pecking in the farmyard. And what is the cause of this aggressiveness? It is fear, isn't it? — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I think we look back at times past with fondness because we were younger. Life had not yet begun pecking away at our innocence like buzzards on fresh road kill. — Craig Ferguson

Opposite the off-licence on Dockers Road, a car was parked on double-yellow lines. Hidden within the sunlight bouncing from its roof was the source of a frail tapping that defeated the din of the city. Squinting into that diamond of light, I discerned a blue tit crystallising from the glare. The little bird was pecking at its reflection. I wanted to tell it to stop. — Edward L. Lanner

Yeah, well, love doesn't always beat out the fear."
"Sometimes it does," he replied with a smile, pecking her on the nose.
"Christ, Driggs. You're turning into a Lifetime movie."
"Your defense mechanisms are captivating, as always. — Gina Damico

Rats may scamper across it and remain rats. Birds may fly above it and remain
birds; they may alight and tear and eat and prick up their heads to stare motionless
and beady for a moment before pecking and eating again, and remain birds. But no
man may venture into this space between the lines and remain a man. That is the
difference. No man may enter, either stealthily on his belly alone, or noisily on two
feet racing through glue with a thousand versions of himself firing, falling, on either
side as far as the eye can see, and remain a man. It is possible to become a man
once more if you make it back behind your line again, but you suspend your
humanity for your sojourn in between. That is why the place is called No Man's Land. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

One naughty little woodpecker
Another day pecking your holes
Ruining the the forest, tree wrecker
The angry wood god turned your little beak into a poison knife
Poor little wood pecker, your nesting holes are all tainted
Your foods with toxins rife
Touch your friends, and they all will die falling to your feet
Oh, sad little woodpecker
Poisonous tears, shining brightly as they stream down your cheeks — Shiro

Hammurabi's Code, for example, established a pecking order of superiors, commoners and slaves. Superiors got all the good things in life. Commoners got what was left. Slaves got a beating if they complained. Despite — Yuval Noah Harari

You know how chickens are, imagining the world coming to an end one moment, then pecking corn the next. — Lloyd Alexander

Manfred used to be a flock of pigeons
literally, his exocortex dispersed among a passel of bird brains, pecking at brightly colored facts, shitting semidigested conclusions. Being human again feels inexplicably odd. (331) — Charles Stross

It was only a couple of chickens. Real chickens. The kind that walk around clucking and pecking. Which is what they were doing. Only no one else seemed to care, or even notice. This is normal? Obviously I had a little hiccup reading my notecards. Understandable. I was talking to forty orphans who had to share a dirt floor with two chickens. No one in college had ever prepared me for this scenario. — Tucker Elliot

There was definitely a pecking order, and when Stallone walked in, we were like, "All hail!" He came in with his big forearms, pointing and telling everybody where he wanted the cameras with his big cigar ablazing, and you just go, "This is Stallone!" with admiration, because none of us would be here without this guy. That's the thing, he changed movies forever — Terry Crews

And finally there was the sleepless night
when i decided to explore and fight
the foul, the inadmissible abyss,
devoting all my twisted life to this
one task. today i'm sixty-one. waxwings
are berry-pecking. a cicada sings. — Vladimir Nabokov

He envied Miss Barrace at any rate her power of not being. She seemed, with little cries and protests and quick recognitions, movements like the darts of some fine high-feathered free-pecking bird, to stand before life as before some full shop-window. You could fairly hear, as she selected and pointed, the tap of her tortoise-shell against the glass. — Henry James

Ethology developed its own specialized language about instincts, fixed action patterns (a species' stereotypical behavior, such as the dog's tail wagging), innate releasers (stimuli that elicit specific behavior, such as the red dot on a gull's bill that triggers pecking by hungry chicks), displacement activities (seemingly irrelevant actions resulting from conflicting tendencies, such as scratching oneself before a decision), and so on. Without going into the details of its classical framework, — Frans De Waal

You learn about gratitude by giving. You learn about humility by receiving, and in the pecking order of human qualities, I'd probably put humility somewhere before gratitude. — Jean Harris

migration. I got suckered into goose-sitting for two days. Two days of honking and feathers, bro." Now it was Adam's turn to run a hand down his face, only he was hiding a stupid grin. "It's called a gaggle, and I heard the mama has a thing for pecking at the boys." She also had a thing for sneaking up on him when he was in the shower - and his boys weren't covered. — Marina Adair

In 1990, my wife and I were married in her village in southwestern Uganda. The festivities went on for three days, and all the while a couple of dozen gray-crowned cranes, with regal bonnets of sun-shot yellow feathers, were pecking and padding around in the adjacent savanna. — Alex Shoumatoff

When we left it, the city was still smoldering. Otherwise it was a perfect spring morning. White hyacinths gasped in the embassy lawn. The sky was September-blue and the pigeons went on pecking at bits of bread scattered by the bombed bakery. Broken baguettes. Crushed croissants. Gutted cars. A carousel spinning its blackened horses. He said the shadow of missiles growing larger on the sidewalk looked like god playing an air piano above us. — Ocean Vuong

Gays seem to be at the bottom of the pecking order: no matter how far down the pecking order another group is, its members still feel superior to and have no problem picking on gays. — Peter McWilliams

How hideous, that there should be a pecking order in my grief. — Sonali Deraniyagala

Did she want me to kiss her? How weird was this going to be? Should it be like a real kiss, with passion and stuff? Or more of an experimental, pecking kind of deal? — Jordan Sonnenblick

Ashrams often become places where there is a hierarchy and a pecking order and not much enlightenment. That is what some people are drawn to. But that has nothing to do with enlightenment. — Frederick Lenz

I didn't like men because they were so physically competitive. Men are always making a pecking order. "I can beat you up and you can beat him up ... " — Carl Andre

Superorganism, ideas, and the pecking order - these are the primary forces behind much of human creativity and earthly good. They are the holy trinity of the Lucifer Principle. — Howard Bloom

Over here you'll see San Fran is also host to a wide variety of exotic animals. Many find our streets to be like a modern rain forest," she says, indicating a flock of flea-ridden pigeons pecking leftovers off a bum sleeping on the curb. — Sarah Noffke

No more growling, pecking or shifting," Katlyn said. "It's against school rules to shift or attack each other. — Madison Johns

Suddenly you've worked yourself up to the top of the pecking order and you say to yourself, okay, this is going to be fun. — Michael Douglas

When God put everybody here, I don't think that he had a master plan of a pecking order. That's not what you see in the Bible. I disagree with that notion, so in my estimation, we've all been put on this planet to share it. It is our duty and our obligation and our responsibility to make sure that we've done so in the proper fashion. — Corey Feldman

Through study and learning they earn the pleasure of princes-
What comes of such learning?
Butter never rises from boiling sour milk.
Speak bird! What do you yearn by pecking newly sprouted grain?
Nursing one broken heart, Bahu, is equal to the worship of many years. — Sultan Bahu

This moment of lucidity does not last long. But it serves as the punishment for your sins, a Promethean entrails-pecking moment, crouching half-horse half-man, with the knowledge that you cannot appreciate the destination without knowing the starting point; you cannot revel in the simplicity unless you remember the alternatives.
And that's not the worst of your revelation. You realize that the next time you return here, with your thick horse brain, you won't have the capacity to ask to become a human again. You won't understand what a human is. Your choice to slide down the intelligence ladder is irreversible. And just before you lose your final human faculties, you painfully ponder what magnificent extraterrestrial creature, enthralled with the idea of finding a simpler life, chose in the last round to become a human. — David Eagleman

There's a problem with the hierarchical orientation, though. When the numbers get too big, the thing breaks down. A pecking order can hold only so many chickens. — Steven Pressfield

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings, make use of you at night. To crave another while pecking your cheek. To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call. — Jeanette Winterson

Every footfall of my boots echoes and ricochets louder and louder, the excruciating stroll I take induces her heartbeat into pecking so hard and erratic, my dick starts hurting with an anticipatory throb. — Poppet

Once you gave up the nervous craving to promote yourself, denigrate others, draw attention to your unique and special qualities, and ensure that you were first in the pecking order, you experienced an immense peace. — Karen Armstrong

Every place had rules. I had to learn the power structure, the pecking order, the no-nos that would get me stabbed or rolled. I — Rick Riordan

I hate to point out the obvious, but here's this tiny bird that's been trying to get through a huge bulletproof glass wall. A totally impossible situation. You tell me it's been here every day pecking away persistently for ten minutes. Well, today the glass wall came down. — Kevin Kwan

Any coalition, especially where one party is more powerful than the other, it's always bound to have a pecking order. — Peter Hook

A charm of Goldfinches swooped in and settled on a stand of thistles, pecking at the down. It was a scene Jejeune had seen a thousand times on calendar pages, one of the most picturesque in nature. It still gave him a frisson of delight and he paused for a moment before speaking. p. 147 — Steve Burrows

Perhaps our behavior becomes more understandable, however, when we remember that just like self-aggrandizement, self-criticism is a type of safety behavior designed to ensure acceptance within the larger social group. Even though the alpha dog gets to eat first, the dog that shows his belly when snarled at still gets his share. He's given a safe place in the pack even if it's at the bottom of the pecking order. Self-criticism serves as a submissive behavior because it allows us to abase ourselves before imaginary others who pronounce judgment over us - then reward our submission with a few crumbs from the table. When we are forced to admit our failings, we can appease our mental judges by acquiescing to their negative opinions of us. — Kristin Neff

'm really proud of it. To me, it's a movie about character behavior and the pecking order of the pack, as well as the central character's massive survival guilt. — Dwight Yoakam

England is seen at its worst when it has to deal with men like Wilde. In Germany Wilde and Byron are appreciated as authors: in England they still go pecking about their love-affairs. Anyone who calls a book 'immoral' or 'moral' should be caned. A book by itself can be neither. It is only a question of the morality or immorality of the reader. But the English approach all questions of vice with such a curious mixture of curiosity and fear that it's impossible to deal with them. — Charles Hamilton Sorley

My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. These memories, which are my life - for we possess nothing certainly except the past - were always with me. Like the pigeons of St. Mark's, they were everywhere, under my feet, singly, in pairs, in little honey-voiced congregations, nodding, strutting, winking, rolling the tender feathers of their necks, perching sometimes, if I stood still, on my shoulder or pecking a broken biscuit from between my lips; until, suddenly, the noon gun boomed and in a moment, with a flutter and sweep of wings, the pavement was bare and the whole sky above dark with a tumult of fowl. Thus it was that morning. — Evelyn Waugh

Being a press secretary is like learning to type: You're hunting and pecking for a while and then you find yourself doing the touch system and don't realize it. You're speaking for the president without ever having to go to him. — Larry Speakes

There is a strange pecking order among actors. Theatre actors look down on film actors, who look down on TV actors. Thank God for reality shows, or we wouldn't have anybody to look down on. — George Clooney

that the prevalence of hierarchy is not limited to human societies. There are clear hierarchies among most social birds and mammals, including those species most nearly related to human beings. Farmers have always known that barnyard flocks of hens develop a 'pecking order' in which each hen has a rank, allowing her to peck at and drive away from food birds below her in rank, but to be pecked by, and forced to give up food to, those above her. — Anonymous

Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The soldier was like that. He was an expert in getting other people to do what he wanted. The only creature that could make the soldier do something he did not want was Midnight, and Midnight did things she did not want only when Whippersnapper wanted something. That put the kitten right at the top of the pecking order. A kitten! — Diana Wynne Jones

The unwritten rules of behaviour are infinite in number, finely shaded, and subtle to the last fraction of a degree. They are not to be broken. If broken, the rules of forgiveness leading to re-establishment are equally of air and iron. I learn these rules with rather less ease than my contemporaries because, in the back streets of my being, a duel is developing and increasing in fervour between my instinct which knows why something is so, and my hen-pecking intelligence which wishes to analyse why something is so. — Hal Porter

I've been working on my autobiography, just pecking away in longhand. The more you write, the more you remember. The more you remember, the more detail you recall. It's not all pleasant! — Pat Morita

The jogger sighed. He pulled out his phone and my eyes got big, because it glowed with a bluish light. When he extended the antenna, two creatures began writhing around it-green snakes, no bigger than earthworms.
The jogger didn't seem to notice. He checked his LCD display and cursed. "I've got to take this. Just a sec ... " Then into the phone: "Hello?" He listened. The mini-snakes writhed up and down the antenna right next to his ear.
Yeah," the jogger said. "Listen-I know, but ... I don't care if he is chained to a rock with vultures pecking at his liver, if he doesn't have a tracking number, we can't locate his package ... A gift to humankind, great ... You know how many of those we deliver-Oh, never mind. Listen, just refer him to Eris in customer service. I gotta go. — Rick Riordan

A strange idea was pecking at his brain like a chicken in the egg, and very, very much absorbed him. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Many critics are like woodpeckers, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk, pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness ... Like the pecking order in a chicken yard ... Once having set up her idols and built altars to them it was inevitable that she would worship there. — Zora Neale Hurston

New Rule: You can't force the ATM to do something it doesn't want to do. Excuse me, lady in front of me at the Citibank ATM, but you've been standing there punching buttons for ten minutes
what are you trying to do, write a novel on it? You hear those beeping noises? That's the ATM saying, "Stop it, you're hurting me." A chicken would have gotten forty bucks out of that thing by now just by pecking the buttons randomly. — Bill Maher

Mild-mannered Abe, however, is Tarzan of the traffic jungle. He knows the strict species pecking order: pedestrians are on the bottom and run out of the way of everything, bicycles make way to cycle-rickshaws, which give way to auto-rickshaws, which stop for cars, which are subservient to trucks. Buses stop for one thing and one thing only. Not customers - they jump on while the buses are still moving. The only thing that can stop a bus is the king of the road, the lord of the jungle and the top dog.
The holy cow. — Sarah Macdonald

School is about two parts ABCs to fifty parts Where Do I Stand in the Great Pecking Order of Humankind. — Barbara Kingsolver

Love at first sight is a hypnosis: I am fascinated by an image: at first shaken, electrified, stunned, "paralysed" as Menon was by Socrates, the model of loved objects, of captivating images, or again converted by an apparition, nothing distinguishing the path of enamoration from the Road to Damascus; subsequently ensnared, held fast, immobilised, nose stuck to the image (the mirror). In that moment when the other's image comes to ravish me for the first time, I am nothing more than the Jesuit Athanasius Kirchner's wonderful Hen: feet tied, the hen went to sleep with her eyes fixed on the chalk line, which was traced not far from her beak; when she was untied, she remained motionless, fascinated, "submitting to her vanquisher," as the Jesuit says (1646); yet, to waken her from her enchantment, to break off the violence of her Image-repertoire (vehemens animalis imaginatio), it was enough to tap her on the wing; she shook herself and began pecking in the dust again. — Roland Barthes