Singing Bird Quotes & Sayings

If you become a singing bird, I will be the listening sky so that I will never miss your song. — Debasish Mridha

The bird with the thorn in its breast, it follows an immutable law; it is driven by it knows not what to impale itself, and die singing. At the very instant the thorn enters there is no awareness in it of the dying to come; it simply sings and sings until there is not the life left to utter another note. But we, when we put the thorns in our breasts, we know. We understand. And still we do it. Still we do it. — Colleen McCullough

Weddings and funerals have so much in common (except that in Ireland funerals are more fun - better food, better drink): at both, our senses are sharpened and we register much more than usual - a striking face or hair-do, the wind's behaviour, a bird singing. — Michael Longley

Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.
I'm just wondering how we know where we belong
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn
Singing in between here and gone — Mary Chapin Carpenter

The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight. — Virginia Woolf

When a group of people sing together, we make up a chorus. When birds do, it's more like a whole symphony orchestra. — Laura Erickson

To be aware is an extraordinary state of mind
to be aware of your surroundings, of the trees, the bird that is singing, the sunset behind you.
to be aware of the beauty of the land, the ripple of the water, - just to be aware, choiclessly.
Please do this as you are going along. Listen to these birds; do not name, do not recognize the species, but just listen to the sound.
Listen to the mouvement of your own thoughts; do not control them, do not shape them,do not say:" this is right, that is wrong"
Just move with them.
That is awareness in which there is no choice, no condemnation, no judgement, no comparison or interpretation, only mere observation.
That makes your mind highly sensitive.
The moment you go name, you have gone back, your mind becomes dull, because that is what you are used to.

J. Krishnamurti — J.Krishnamurti

It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of a song. In the afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Winston and Julia clung together, fascinated. The music went on and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as though the bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity ... For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate, no rival was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely wood and pour its music into nothingness? — George Orwell

My life is a tree, yoke fellow of the earth, pledged by roots too deep for remembrance. To stand hard against the storm. To fill my place. (But high in the branches of my green tree there is a wild bird singing. Wing-free are the wings of my bird; she hath built no mortal nest) — Karle Wilson Baker

Last night I heard a robin singing in the rain,
And the raindrop's patter made a sweet refrain,
Making all the sweeter the music of the strain.
So, I thought, when trouble comes, as trouble will,
Why should I stop singing? Just beyond the hill
It may be that sunshine floods the green world still.
He who faces the trouble with a heart of cheer
Makes the burden lighter. If there falls a tear,
Sweeter is the cadence in the song we hear.
I have learned your lesson, bird with dappled wing,
Listening to your music with its lilt of spring
When the storm-cloud darkens, then's the TIME to sing. — Eben E. Rexford

Each of us has something within us which won't be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that's all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, its self-knowledge can't affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it. — Colleen McCullough

Wisdom comes with all we see, God writes His lessons in each flower, And ev'ry singing bird or bee Can teach us something of His power. — Maud Lindsay

After so many years of foolishness, you have once again had an idea, have done something, have heard the bird in your chest singing and have followed it. — Hermann Hesse

The bicycle saves my life every day. If you've ever experienced a moment of awe or freedom on a bicycle; if you've ever taken flight from sadness to the rhythm of two spinning wheels, or felt the resurgence of hope pedalling to the top of a hill with the dew of effort on your forehead; if you've ever wondered, swooping down bird-like down a long hill, if the world was standing still; if you have ever, just once, sat on a bicycle with a singing heart and felt like an ordinary human touching the gods, then we share something fundamental. We know it's all about the bike. — Robert Penn

A beautiful rain is a treasure box. Inside this magical box there is an artistic umbrella, there is a pretty rainbow, there is a sweet bird singing and there is a lovely smell of earth! Something wonderful has a great potential to create some other wonderful things! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The sun is shining and the bird are singing what more could you ask for in a day! — Heather Mills

Do we ask what profit the little bird hopes for in singing? — Johannes Kepler

A bird hopped onto the foaming lilac outside. Its throat quivered; notes rose and fell out. As long as it kept singing and I kept staring, I told myself, I wouldn't start crying. — David Mitchell

It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. — Black Elk

And while he waited in the castle court,
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang
Clear through the open casement of the hall,
Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;
And made him like a man abroad at morn
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly
Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red,
And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labour of his hands,
To think or say, 'There is the nightingale;'
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,
'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me. — Alfred Tennyson

In the deepest night of trouble and sorrow God gives us so much to be thankful for that we need never cease our singing. With all our wisdom and foresight we can take a lesson in gladness and gratitude from the happy bird that sings all night, as if the day were not long enough to tell its joy. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God. Close your eyes and breathe your way beneath your troubles, the way a diver slips to that depth of stillness that is always waiting beneath the churning of the waves. Now, consider two things you love doing, such as running, drawing, singing, bird-watching, gardening, or reading. Meditate on what it is in each of these that makes you feel alive. Hold what they have in common before you, and breathing slowly, feel the spot of grace these dear things mirror within you. — Mark Nepo

The other puppeteers are really good, often when they are singing together, they go left, right, left ... But if they are all moving to the left, I'm moving to the right. Big Bird and Oscar, that's okay, because they are individuals anyway. — Caroll Spinney

Take whatever cause for outward happiness you might have and take it within yourself, so that, if the sun should go out, you will not be any less happy; if the birds stop singing you will not be any less happy. — Goswami Kriyananda

The woods would be quiet if no bird sang but the one that sang best. — Henry Van Dyke

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come. — Lois Lowry

The heart's actions
are neither the sentence nor its reprieve.
Salt hay and thistles, above the cold granite.
One bird singing back to another because it can't not. — Jane Hirshfield

The sound coming out of me is nothing like a cough, nothing even in the same category of a song, but some kind of bird of prey roar, shredding my throat, pulsating my fingers, and Milekt beneath it, singing inside my voice, amplifying me, and making me stronger. — Maria Dahvana Headley

Danes had on their windows; the entire city had to be completely darkened at night. In a nearby tree, a bird was singing; otherwise it was quiet. It was the last night of September. "Go, now, and get into your nightgowns. It will be a long night." Annemarie and Ellen got to their feet. Papa suddenly crossed the room and put his arms around them both. He kissed the top of each head: Annemarie's blond one, which reached to his shoulder, and Ellen's dark hair, the thick — Lois Lowry

My heart is like a singing bird. — Christina Rossetti

I saw a bullfrog snap a tiny bird off a reed once, swallowing it just like that, grinding the singing thing to foodstuff in its slimy belly, and the witnessing of that act produced in me an insight: that this moment of terror before resignation was possibly the only ascertainable moment of truth we can ever know in life. — Carl Watson

To a poet, the human community is like the community of birds to a bird, singing to each other. Love is one of the reasons we are singing to one another, love of language itself, love of sound, love of singing itself, and love of the other birds. — Sharon Olds

He had his eyes closed and
rocked himself so much that everyone thought he would
soon crash to the ground. And then it happened. He
crashed to the ground. Surprised, he lay on the ground
on his side, not sure what had happened, looking around.
Next he jumped up and listened to Matica's singing again,
starting to rock himself once more. His eyes closed slowly,
his beak opened. And then he crashed to the ground a second
time. This time he kept lying down, spreading his free
wing up into the air and waving it to the tune of the melody.
Strange sounds came out of his beak. It was a grunt
but more than a grunt, as if he was really enjoying himself,
as if he would follow Matica's words and would sing
or hum as well. — Gigi Sedlmayer

The fish in the water is silent, the animals on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air. — Rabindranath Tagore

A clock struck out the hour of twelve, and the bird in the hedgerow was still singing as we marched out to the roadway, and followed our merry pipers home to town. — Patrick MacGill

Proud Maisie"

Proud Maisie is in the wood,
Walking so early;
Sweet Robin sits on the bush,
Singing so rarely.

'Tell me, thou bonny bird,
When shall I marry me?'
'When six braw gentlemen
Kirkward shall carry ye.'

'Who makes the bridal bed,
Birdie, say truly?'
'The grey-headed sexton,
That delves the grave duly.

'The glowworm o'er grave and stone
Shall light thee steady;
The owl from the steeple sing,
'Welcome, proud lady. — Walter Scott

We had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it was observable that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated the trees with the intense sunburst of the electric light, a certain curious effect was always produced: hundreds of birds flocked instantly out from the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither and thither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up and fell to singing. — Mark Twain

The train ran out into a steep green meadow and Jacob saw striped tulips growing and heard a bird singing, in Italy. There were trees laced together with vines - as Virgil said. Virgil's bees had gone about the plains of Lombardy. It was the custom of the ancients to train vines between elms. Then at Milan there were sharp-winged hawks, of a bright brown, cutting figures over the roofs. — Virginia Woolf

A bird cried jubilation. In that moment they lived long. All minor motions were stilled and only the great ones were perceived. Beneath them the earth turned, singing. — Sheri S. Tepper

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens ... — Johannes Kepler

North Korea is a necrocracy, or a mauselocracy or a thanatocracy in which the one [Kim Il-sung] is diffused into being with the other [Kim Jong Il], and where both of them are said to have had miraculous births attended by miraculous phenomena such as, for example, birds singing in Korean, when they were born. — Christopher Hitchens

A Golden Day
I Found you and I lost you,
All on a gleaming day.
The day was filled with sunshine,
And the land was full of May.
A golden bird was singing
Its melody divine,
I found you and I loved you,
And all the world was mine.
I found you and I lost you,
All on a golden day,
But when I dream of you, dear,
It is always brimming May. — Paul Laurence Dunbar

In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves; it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight. — Ursula K. Le Guin

One thing he shared with the singing bird was a love of rain and especially of storms. He always felt a deep thrill of awe when the pale sapphire cloaks of sky were flung aside and dark raging heavens roared and plunged and cast fire and water and ice upon the earth. Something — Jonathan Renshaw

Charlotte Corday walked alone Paris birds sang sugar calls Charlotte walked down lanes of stone through the haze of perfume stalls Charlotte smelt the dead's gangrene Heard the singing guillotine — Peter Weiss

For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me. — Alan Watts

Today I will gratefully receive all the gifts that life has to offer me. I will receive the gifts of sunlight and the sound of birds singing and spring showers. I will also be open to receiving from others, whether it is in the form of a material gift, a compliment or a prayer. — Deepak Chopra

We hear the ambient noise of children singing. We hear lions and tigers roar. Hyenas laugh. Some jungle bird or howler monkey declares its existence, screeching a maniac's gibberish. Our entire world, always doing battle against the silence and obscurity of death. — Chuck Palahniuk

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

Siren Song

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don't enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time. — Margaret Atwood

An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain,Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again;The birds singing gayly, that came at my call,Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all. — John Howard Payne

There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone. — Sara Teasdale

The sunshine was delightful, the foliage gently astir, more from the activity of birds than from the breeze. One gallant little bird, doubtless lovelorn, was singing his heart out at the top of a tall tree. — Victor Hugo

Showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back. — William C. Bryant

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects, Ceaseless, insistent. The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples, The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence Under a moon waning and worn, broken, Tired with summer. — Sara Teasdale

We do not ask what hope of gain makes a little bird warble, since we know that it takes delight in singing because it is for that very singing that the bird was made, so there is no need to ask why the human mind undertakes such toil in seeking out these secrets of the heavens ... And just as other animals, and the human body, are sustained by food and drink, so the very spirit of Man, which is something distinct from Man, is nourished, is increased, and in a sense grows up on this diet of knowledge, and is more like the dead than the living if it is touched by no desire for these things. — Johannes Kepler

'Tis always morning somewhere, and aboveThe awakening continents, from shore to shore,Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Now you may hear songs of kindness
From every singing bird
And from every dancing heart
Let kindness be the part of your being — Debasish Mridha

Out of the sea will rise Behemoth and Leviathan, and sail 'round the high-pooped galleys ... Dragons will wander about the waste places, and the phoenix will soar from her nest of fire into the air. We shall lay our hands upon the basilisk, and see the jewel in the toad's head. Champing his gilded oats, the Hippogriff will stand in our stalls, and over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that should be. — Oscar Wilde

Each bird must sing with his own throat. — Henrik Ibsen

Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There was once a merchant. An eager, industrious young man. His business ... required him to rise early and thus to bed early. But one evening ... he stayed awake past his usual hour ... and in so doing he heard the wondrous singing of something he'd never heard before: a nightbird. The next night, he managed to stay awake later ... to hear more of the bird's song. And the following night. He became so ... so intoxicated with the nightbird's voice that he thought only of it during the day. Came the time when he spent all the night listening to that song. Could not carry out his business during the sunlit hours. Soon he turned his back altogether on the day, and gave himself over to the nightbird's beautiful voice ... much to the sad end of his career, his health ... eventually his life. — Anonymous

In the marvelous month of May when all the buds were bursting, then in my heart did love arise. In the marvelous month of May when all the birds were singing, then did I reveal to her my yearning and longing. — Heinrich Heine

In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time , like the blank clock. No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore. — Stephen Spender

Find a day for yourself-better yet, late at night. Go to the forest or to the field, or lock yourself in a room ... You will meet solitude there. There you will be able to listen attentively to the noise of the wind first, to birds singing, to see wonderful nature and to notice yourself in it ... and to come back to harmonic connection with the world and its Creator. — Nachman Of Breslov

Keda,' she said to herself,' Keda, this is tragedy.' But as her words hung emptily in the morning air, she clenched her hands for she could feel no anguish and the bright bird that had filled her breast was still singing ... was still singing. — Mervyn Peake

Faith is a bird that can see the light when it is dawn and starts singing in the dark. — Rabindranath Tagore

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound. — Andrew Bird

What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love. — Henry David Thoreau

You are walking in a desert.You hear a bird singing.As absurd as it may seem for a bird to be pending in the desert,you are obligated to make it a tree.That's poem — Kiki Dimoula

The elements of voice and style are braided together like twine, consisting of these attempts to copy other artists, or an instrument, or even the sound of a bird or passing train. Added to these characteristics are emotions and thoughts that register as various vocal quirks, like hiccups, sighs, growls, warbles - a practically limitless assortment of choices. Most of these choices are made at the speed of sound on a subconscious level, or one would be completely overwhelmed by the task. — Linda Ronstadt

Somewhere outside, a goldfinch was singing. Or maybe it was a song sparrow. My dad tried to teach me different kinds of bird songs, but I couldn't quite remember. — Jenny Han

Jay became an adult. He got a job, married a wife, and they had a child. Now he had so many things to take care! Like all other grown ups, he talked more of being busy than of being happy. He completely forgot the little bird singing beautiful songs in his heart. — Ilchi Lee

I woke to find every window open I woke to find the heavy door ajar And I walked outside and stood upon the hilltop And gazed once more on a bright morning star I walked outside and every bird was singing As I found again my bright morning star — Mary Chapin Carpenter

Night was falling. Birds were singing. Birds were, it occurred to me to say, enacting a frantic celebration of day's end. They were manifesting as the earth's bright-colored nerve endings, the sun's descent urging them into activity, filling them individually with life nectar, the life nectar then being passed into the world, out of each beak, in the form of that bird's distinctive song, which was, in turn, an accident of beak shape, throat shape, breast configuration, brain chemistry: some birds blessed in voice, others cursed; some squeaking, others rapturous. — George Saunders

Right now the day length is exactly the same as in spring when birds key into it and begin singing. The birds are a little confused by it all and the singing isn't very intense. It only lasts a week or so each fall, but it's still cool to hear spring bird songs at this time of the year. — Craig Thompson

Birds sing on a bare bough; O, believer, canst not thou? — Charles Spurgeon

Music is a thing of the soul-a roselipped shell that murmured of the eternal sea-a strange bird singing the songs of another shore. — J.G. Holland

In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee — Lord Byron

The poet is a bird of strange moods. He descends from his lofty domain to tarry among us, singing; if we do not honor him he will unfold his wings and fly back to his dwelling place. — Khalil Gibran

Once you develop the practice of smiling, you may not need a reminder. You will smile as soon as you hear a bird singing or see the sunlight streaming through the window. — Nhat Hanh

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by. — Robert Graves

Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow. — Robert Louis Stevenson

EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields;
on - on - and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done. — Siegfried Sassoon

Make fun of death. We are as dead as it gets, and we are fully aware of this joyous experience. We are with you every time you allow it. We are in every singing bird and in every joyful child. We are part of every delicious pulsing in your environment. We are not dead, and neither will you ever be! You will just get up, one day, and get out of the movie. — Esther Hicks

Ede had been pregnant not quite the full term: eight months, two weeks, four days. She had lapsed into an extended silence - partly because she was still in mourning - still enraged and afraid of speech. And partly, too, because the child itself had taken up dreaming in her belly - dreaming and, Ede was certain, singing. Not singing songs a person knew, of course. Nothing Ede could recognize. But songs for certain. Music - with a tune to it. Evocative. A song about self. A song about place. As if a bird had sung it, sitting in a tree at the edge of a field. Or high in the air above a field. A hovering song. Of recognition. — Timothy Findley

There's a story ... a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree ... and never rests until it's found one. And then it sings ... more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles. — Colleen McCullough

But I do love the world, I whispered to the empty room. I love its small ones, the things beaten in the strangling surf the singing bird which falls and is not seen again, the lost ones, the failures of the world. — Loren Eiseley

Marrying a woman for her beauty makes no more sense than eating a bird for its singing. But it's a common mistake nonetheless. — Charles Frazier

Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs. — Pema Chodron

Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard
That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird? — James Elroy Flecker

True communion with nature becomes possible when the energy sense is turned on and heightened. You're moved by the sounds of a bird singing in the morning, and you can feel the principles of nature even in a single leaf falling with its back to the setting sun. You come to realize that you were never alone, that you have always been breathing surrounded by the massive energy of life. — Ilchi Lee

When the Sun of compassion arises darkness evaporates and the singing birds come from nowhere. — Amit Ray

And now above and beyond the birds' song, Andy hears a more distant singing, whether of voices or instruments, sounds or words, he cannot tell. It is at first faint, and then stronger, filling the sky and touching the ground, and the birds answer it. He understands presently that he is hearing the light; he is hearing the sun, which now has risen, though from the valley it is not yet visible. The light's music resounds and shines in the air and over the countryside, drawing everything into the infinite, sensed but mysterious pattern of its harmony. From every tree and leaf, grass blade, stone, bird, and beast, it is answered and again answers. The creatures sing back their names. But more than their names. They sing their being. The world sings. The sky sings back. It is one song, the song of the many members of one love, the whole song sung and to be sung, resounding, in each of its moments. And it is light. — Wendell Berry

Poppy wiped his sweating face with a dry cloth. "Poor Merripen." She brought a cup of water to his lips. When he tried to refuse, she slid an arm beneath his head and raised it insistently. "Yes, you must. I should have known you'd be a terrible patient. Drink, dear, or I'll be forced to sing something."
Amelia stifled a grin as Merripen complied. "Your singing isn't that terrible, Poppy. Father always said you sang like a bird."
"He meant a parrot," Merripen said hoarsely, leaning his head on Poppy's arm.
"Just for that," Poppy informed him, "I'm going to send Beatrix in here to look after you today. She'll probably put one of her pets in bed with you, and spread her jacks all over the floor. And if you're very lucky, she'll bring in her glue pots, and you can help make paper-doll clothes."
Merripen gave Amelia a glance rife with muted suffering, and she laughed.
"If that doesn't inspire you to get well quickly, dear, nothing will. — Lisa Kleypas

Write as you like, use the rhythms that come out, try different instruments, sit at the piano, destroy the metric, shout instead of singing, blow your guitar and ring the horn. Hate mathematics, and love eddies. Creation is a bird without a flight plan, that will never fly in a straight line. — Violeta Parra