Swallow In Flight Quotes & Sayings

We are all just humble students of the world. — Bryant McGill

The tea ritual: such a precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tastes; accession to simple, authentic and refined sensations, a license given to all, at little cost, to become aristocrats of taste, because tea is the beverage of the wealthy and the poor; the tea ritual, therefore, has the extraordinary virtue of introducing into the absurdity of our lives an aperture of serene harmony. Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed. — Muriel Barbery

Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present. — Regina Brett

We were alive. I remember it that way. We were still alive, and we couldn't see how close we were to the end. — Nova Ren Suma

I loathe the urchin's cruelty to the cat, but I will not loathe the urchin. I loathe Hitler's mass-torturing, but not Hitler; and the money-man's heartlessness, but not the man. I love the swallow's flight, and I love the swallow; the urchin's gleam of tenderness, and the urchin. — Olaf Stapledon

It wasn't a waste of time if you learned that it was a waste of time. — Ahmed Ali Anjum

This is life. We have to take it as it comes, because even though some things are really shitty, there's a lot of really great stuff too. — Rebecca Serle

We used to fuck with our Catholic roommate during Lent, trying to determine exactly how specific God's opinion was about that one. What if you ate something that you didn't know contained meat? What if you were driving east at 11:30pm and unknowingly crossed into a new time zone right before biting into a cheeseburger? During an airline flight, did God go by departure time, arrival time, or local time when determining the Hell- or Heavenbound nature of your meals? "What if you're a butcher," I remember saying, "and you're slicing up a side of beef on Friday when a stray bit of flesh becomes airborne and lodges itself in your throat. You begin to choke. You can't cough it up, but you could swallow it and save your life. What then, when your life is at stake?" Ridiculous? Sacrilegious? — Johnny B. Truant

Friendship is but a name, faith is an empty name. Alas,
it is not safe to praise to a friend the object of your love;
as soon as he believes your praises, he slips into your place. — Ovid

Focus your attention around the naval area, feel that spot. Visualize it. Do whatever it takes. When thoughts come in and out of your mind, pay no attention. You just stay right on that spot! — Frederick Lenz

I know I've made huge gains in my confidence, and knowing more about my racing and myself as a person. That has made me a better athlete — Libby Trickett

It's more important to do big things well than to do small things perfectly. — Anonymous

Pete's voice. "You — Catherine Ryan Hyde

He wasn't that careful, Lucan. I think you've got him mixed up with someone else."


"He put a lot of effort into you. Not just as a soldier. But as a child. Why teach you that horse sport? Why teach you to play an instrument? Why give you a God? He took you to church? Every week?"


I swallow and nod as my face begins to feel hot.


"Men who want to kill their grandchildren don't do those things, Junco."


FLIGHT ~ Chapter One — J.A. Huss

Don't you want to know where I'd go if I could?" Not really, I think. "Where would you go if you could go anywhere?" It comes out bitchier than I mean for it to. He leans forward over the handlebars, eyes on me. "I'd go to Hoosier Hill with a beautiful girl." A — Jennifer Niven

Sudden Light
I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
You have been mine before,
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.
Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more? — Dante Gabriel Rossetti

He sang the brightness of mornings and green rivers,
He sang of smoking water in the rose-colored daybreaks,
Of colors: cinnabar, carmine, burnt sienna, blue,
Of the delight of swimming in the sea under marble cliffs,
Of feasting on a terrace above the tumult of a fishing port,
Of tastes of wine, olive oil, almonds, mustard, salt.
Of the flight of the swallow, the falcon,
Of a dignified flock of pelicans above the bay,
Of the scent of an armful of lilacs in summer rain,
Of his having composed his words always against death
And of having made no rhyme in praise of nothingness. — Czeslaw Milosz

The Flight
Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,
Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,
Let our flight be far in sun or blowing rain
But what if I heard my first love calling me again?
Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,
Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;
Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door
But what if I heard my first love calling me once more? — Sara Teasdale

A diagnosis . . . should not be used to close doors, but rather to open them wider, by making modifications in programs to accommodate special needs, by adding to the understanding that teachers, social workers, lawyers and judges have for affected individuals. — Bonnie Buxton

The age of clear answers was over. So was the age of characters and plots. Despite her journal sketches, she no longer really believed in characters. They were quiant devices that belonged to the nineteenth century. The very concept of character was founded on errors that modern psychology had exposed. Plots too were like rusted machinery whose wheels would no longer turn. A modern novelist could no more write characters and plots than a modern composer could a Mozart symphony. It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll, as well as the tributaries that would swell it, and the obstacles that would divert it. If only she could reproduce the clear light of a summer's morning, the sensations of a child standing at a window, the curve and dip of a swallow's flight over a pool of water. The novel of the future would be unlike anything in the past. — Ian McEwan

But we're going to smile and pretend we're fine with the dorky birthmas gifts because people do not get that they can't mush a birthday into christmas. — P.C. Cast

Love in my heart is a cry forever
Lost as the swallow's flight,
Seeking for you and never, never
Stilled by the stars at night — Sara Teasdale