Birds

Famous quotes containing the word birds:

    Let us not succumb to nature. We will marshall the clouds and restrain tempests; we will bottle up pestilent exhalations; we will probe for earthquakes, grub them up, and give vent to the dangerous gas; we will disembowel the volcano, and extract its poison, take its seed out. We will wash water, and warm fire, and cool ice, and underprop the earth. We will teach birds to fly, and fishes to swim, and ruminants to chew the cud. It is time we looked into these things.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
    Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
    The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
    Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
    Led on th’ eternal Spring.
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.
    William Golding (b. 1911)