Early Birds Quotes

1. "When Jennifer was here in the summer, they were at the house most days. I would say generally that as they got older they became quieter, and though I enjoyed both, I sometimes missed the giggles and shouts. The quiet voices, just low enough for me not to hear from wherever I was, rising and failing in proportion to my distance from them, frightened me. Not that I believed they were planning or recounting anything really wicked, but there was a female seriousness about them, and it was secretive, and of course I thought: love, sex. But it was more than that: it was womanhood they were entering, the deep forest of it, and no matter how many women and men too are saying these days that there is little difference between us, the truth is that men find their way into that forest only on clearly marked trails, while women move about in it like birds. So hearing Jennifer and her friends talking so quietly, yet intensely, I wanted very much to have a wife."
Author: Andre Dubus

2. "It had only been two days – two days – since he'd seen her last, and yet he'd missed her every step of the way. How was that possible? To miss someone you'd scarcely had in your life at all? For all his knowledge, he had no answer, only knew that every moment spent by her side made it that much more difficult to leave again. To accept the incoming battering of noise, the necessary barrenness of his life. The loneliness.He could hear the music of her voice so clearly as she spoke now, every inflection, every intonation. And the world around them, too – birds on the wing and children laughing. Her presence was a continual surprise, one that made him by turns calm and edgy and covetous. And mindful, his responsibilities, self-appointed though they were, crowding back into his mind on a silent sigh. The Descent was still closing in on him, and Dmitri still lived, which meant there was too much left to do and no time for distraction. But still..."
Author: Angela B. Wade

3. "In the early years of the Uprising, we survived on one meal a day of horse meat and soup, but by the end we ate only dried peas, dogs, cats and birds."
Author: Diane Ackerman

4. "When she started back she saw a blue jay perched atop the feeder. She stopped dead and held her breath. It stood large and polished and looked royally remote from the other birds busy feeding and she could nearly believe she'd never seen a jay before. It stood enormous, looking in at her, seeing whatever it saw, and she wanted to tell Rey to look up. She watched it, black-barred across the wings and tail, and she thought she'd somehow only now learned how to look. She'd never seen a thing so clearly and it was not simply because the jay was posted where it was, close enough for her to note the details of cresting and color. There was also the clean shock of its appearance among the smaller brownish birds, its mineral blue and muted blue and broad dark neckband. But if Rey looked up, the bird would fly."
Author: Don DeLillo

5. "Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to the main tendencies of Nature. A particular flower may not be dead in early winter, but the flowers are dying; a particular pebble may never be wetted with the tide, but the tide is coming in. To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring."
Author: G.K. Chesterton

6. "He walked by instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl."
Author: G.K. Chesterton

7. "When the heart stops oozing blood & the outpouring is clear as water (so to speak) then you know you've turned the corner & will be well.When you look inward & all pathwaysare no longer dark but clearly lighted& shine like transparent drinking strawsthen you know you'll find your way alone.When the gray morning has nothing to do with you & doesn't weigh you downlike a heavy blanket, then you knowthat moving will be easy again and your body will flow through timelike the river it really is, smooth & deep.no rocks, no shallows to smash or catch you,keep you from moving on.When the heart slowsto its normal rhythm and the beautyof birdsong at dawn doesn't make you cry because you are alone listening, then you know that everything has happened that is going to for now, and you can get on withyour life & everything about it that was yours alone and always finer thananyone could ever imagine it would bewithout him."
Author: Grace Butcher

8. "After a long night at a tropical beach and bar,I helped a drunken couple find their cabin in the early morning darkness. The husband remarked that he is only happy when he is drunk. (I am not sure what to make of that.)When I hear birds serenading the gift of a new day,When I watch the trees sway like fields of wheat,and feel a warm wind ruffle my hair and caress my face,When I see clouds slowly drift and turn like leaves floating on a meandering stream,I know joy. When I hear your sweet voice and see your generous smile, When I gently pull you closer and inhale your perfume,which harks back wonderful memories of love and joy,When I gaze into your eyes, azure pools that draw me in,and gently kiss your crimson lips, When you are lying next to me with your hand on my chest and we feel intimately connected, as if your body is my body, your heart is my heart and our souls are intermingled,I know happiness,I know love."
Author: Jeffrey A. White

9. "Genetic selection for early egg production, to reduce time and money 'wasted' on feeding and housing unproductive birds for six months, results in eggs being formed that are often too big to be laid by the immature body of a small, five month old bird. Uteruses 'prolapse,' pushing through the vagina of the small, cramped birds forced to strain day after day to expel huge eggs. The uterus protrudes, hangs, and 'blows out,' inviting infection and vent picking by cell mates, from whom the prolapse victim, in severe pain, cannot escape except by dying."
Author: Karen Davis

10. "But in the early 1970s, we were not birdwatching. We were birding, and that made all the difference. We were out to seek, to discover, to chase, to learn, to find as many different kinds of birds as possible — and, in friendly competition, to try to find more of them than the next birder. We became a community of birders, with the complications that human societies always have; and although it was the birds that had brought us together, our story became a human story after all."
Author: Kenn Kaufman

11. "When we first arrived at Auschwitz there were birds. I didn't know what kind, just brown birds, like the finches. They came for about a week and then the Nazis electrified the fences. I was out early the first morning they had the power on. A whole flight of these little birds came in and as they settled on the wire they made quick bright bursts of flame and smoke. The others did not know what was happening and they kept coming in and getting incinerated. The next day the birds did not come close to the camp. We saw them in the distance for a few days, but they never came close. At first I thought they had just naturally learned a lesson, but then I realized they had become sensitive to evil."
Author: Lawrence Thornton

12. "Birds are the last of the dinosaurs. Tiny velociraptors with wings. Devouring defenseless wiggly things and, and nuts, and fish, and, and other birds. They get the early worms. And have you ever watched a chicken eat? They may look innocent, but birds are, well, they're vicious."
Author: Neil Gaiman

13. "I woke early like a condemned man to the naivety of birdsong."
Author: Nick Drake

14. "Hartwell's subconscious was treated to a lengthy reel of the evolutionary tract of cetaceans – from their early days as hoofed creatures with triangular teeth like wolves, to cat-like creatures, to early variations of the hippopotamus, to bottlenose dolphins and Orca, the ‘killer whale', which is the largest species of dolphin. The hybrid mammal also had the ability to convert to a smaller aquatic mammal, capable of diving into water and hiding beneath the surface to avoid birds of prey."
Author: Phil Wohl

15. "Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning."
Author: Rainer Maria Rilke

16. "I've just been playing the Trout Quintet on the phonograph. Listening to the andantino makes me want to be a trout myself. You can't help rejoicing and laughing, however moved or sad you feel, when you see the springtime clouds in the sky, the budding branches, moved by the wind, in the bright early sunlight. I'm really looking forward to the spring again. In that piece of Schubert's you can positively feel and smell the breeze and hear the birds and the whole of creation shouting for joy."
Author: Sophie Scholl

17. "I went back every evening, after work, for nearly a year. I learned the meaning of the cud of a leaf and the glisten of wet pebbles, and the special significance of curves and angles. A great deal of the writing was unwritten. Plot three dots on a graph and join them; you now have a curve with certain characteristics. Extend that curve while maintaining the characteristics, and it has meaning, up where no dots were plotted.In just this way I learned to extend the curve of a grass-blade and of a protruding root, of the bent edges of wetness on a drying headstone. I quit smoking so I could sharpen my sense of smell, because the scent of earth after a rain has a clarifying effect on graveyard reading, as if the page were made whiter and the ink darker. I began to listen to the wind, and to the voices of birds and small animals, insects and people; because to the educated ear, every sound is filtered through the story written on graves, and becomes a part of it.("The Graveyard Reader")"
Author: Theodore Sturgeon

18. "Sometimes on flat boring afternoons, he'd squatted on the curb of St. Deval Street and daydreamed silent pearly snowclouds into sifting coldly through the boughs of the dry, dirty trees. Snow falling in August and silvering the glassy pavement, the ghostly flakes icing his hair, coating rooftops, changing the grimy old neighborhood into a hushed frozen white wasteland uninhabited except for himself and a menagerie of wonder-beasts: albino antelopes, and ivory-breasted snowbirds; and occasionally there were humans, such fantastic folk as Mr Mystery, the vaudeville hypnotist, and Lucky Rogers, the movie star, and Madame Veronica, who read fortunes in a Vieux Carré tearoom."
Author: Truman Capote

19. "Lines Written In Early SpringI heard a thousand blended notes,While in a grove I sate reclined,In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind.To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to thinkWhat man has made of man.Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;And 'tis my faith that every flowerEnjoys the air it breathes.The birds around me hopped and played,Their thoughts I cannot measure:--But the least motion which they madeIt seemed a thrill of pleasure.The budding twigs spread out their fan,To catch the breezy air;And I must think, do all I can,That there was pleasure there.If this belief from heaven be sent,If such be Nature's holy plan,Have I not reason to lamentWhat man has made of man?"
Author: William Wordsworth

Early Birds Quotes Pictures