Bird Watching Quotes

The richer we get in a consumer society, the more acutely we become aware of how many grades of value--of both leisure and labor--we have climbed. The higher we are on the pyramid, the less likely we are to give up time to simple idleness and to apparently nonproductive pursuits. The joy of listening to the neighborhood finch is easily overshadowed by stereophonic recordings of "Bird Songs of the World," the walk through the park downgraded by preparations for a packaged bird-watching tour into the jungle. It becomes difficult to economize time when all commitments are for the long run. Staffan Linder points out that there is a strong tendency for us to over-commit to the future, so that when the future becomes present, we seem to be conscious all the time of having an acute scarcity, simply because we have committed ourselves to about thirty hours a day instead of twenty-four. In addition to the mere fact that time has competitive uses and high marginal utility in an affluent society, this overcommitment creates a sense of pressure and harriedness. ~ Ivan Illich

Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees. ~ David Letterman

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. ~ Izaak Walton

Was he hitting some type of werewolf midlife crisis? First, he'd left Wolf Town, and now he was envisioning a mate. What next? Bird watching? Board games? Retirement homes? ~ Rose Wynters

When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Unless you want a horrible surprise, never go bird watching with an open mouth. ~ Kent Allan Rees

I started out wanting to be a naturalist. My obsession in my youth was with bird-watching. I collected things, I spent a lot of time outdoors. I only vaguely realized that science was a little more than natural history, but by then I was hooked. ~ Matt Ridley

You might have thought that bird watching would be recognized as the most harmless, inoffensive, innocent of pastimes, and yet .... There was the time I was brought out of my reverie by a police officer who clearly thought I was loitering with criminal intent. When I responded "It's a Hudsonian Godwit!" he revised his assessment from "hardened criminal" to "dangerous loony". Fortunately my wife intervened, and he came to accept that I was in fact a harmless loony who could be safely left in her care. ~ Clive Keen

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

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. ~ Henry David Thoreau

We do a lot of bird-watching up in the country, but we almost never have a chance to people-watch. There simply aren't enough human beings up here: there is nowhere you can park yourself with a cup of coffee and observe the species on parade. ~ Susan Orlean

Orwell wrote easily and well about small humane pursuits, such as bird watching, gardening and cooking, and did not despise popular pleasures like pubs and vulgar seaside resorts. In many ways, his investigations into ordinary life and activity prefigure what we now call 'cultural studies. ~ Christopher Hitchens

That night, after we'd had our tea, Kevin and I went bird-watching. Not the usual sort, plodding round the fields with great binoculars round your neck (though I did take my work binoculars). No, we go up in the big trees in the wood, where the birds live. Right to the tops we go, where the branches sway and swing like a comfy bed, and you can look along the green billows of the tree-tops. In spring, we take the eggs out of the nests, handling them gentle, like, and putting them back afterwards of course. An' getting away quickly, so the hen-bird can come back and sit on them again. That's a wonder of life to me; to hold a speckled egg in the palm of your hand, and think what a marvellous thing it's going to become, a bird that flies and feeds and takes its chance with the cats, and breeds its own young and dies back into the dust in the end. Why does anyone need those crazy Christian dreams of Heaven, wi' angels playin' their harps on fleecy clouds, when they can have a wood at sunset, when you can look down from a low branch and see young rabbits playing, or even young foxes tumbling over and over and squeaking when they nip each other with their sharp little teeth? ~ Robert Westall

I consider myself to have been the bridge between the shotgun and the binoculars in bird watching. Before I came along, the primary way to observe birds was to shoot them and stuff them. ~ Roger Tory Peterson

Aw, I'm like a proud mother bird watching my daughter fly from the nest. Fly, little bird, fly. Oh no! Don't fall. No, that's the ground. Addie, watch out for the ground. Man, tough luck. You'd better come back home. ~ Kasie West

So many hilarious scenes and seductions! ~ Dennis McKay

Watch the sunset without speaking, just like a bird watching the sunset in complete silence! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I first became aware of Charles Darwin and evolution while still a schoolboy growing up in Chicago. My father and I had a passion for bird-watching, and when the snow or the rain kept me indoors, I read his bird books and learned about evolution. ~ James D. Watson

Don't forget that birds with broken wings walking on the ground were once flying high up in the sky. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I've always said that instead of watching a guy juggle seven things amazingly I would rather see a really bad juggler who's really funny. ~ Jeff Dunham

You cold or something?' he said. She strained against him; she wanted to pass clear through him: 'It's a chill, it's nothing'; and then, pushing a little away: 'Say you love me.'

I said it.'

No, oh no. You haven't. I was listening. And you never do.'

Well, give me time.'

Please.'

He sat up and glanced at a clock across the room. It was after five. Then decisively he pulled off his windbreaker and began to unlace his shoes.

Aren't you going to, Clyde?'

He grinned back at her. 'Yeah, I'm going to.'

I don't mean that; and what's more, I don't like it: you sound as though you were talking to a whore.'

Come off it, honey. You didn't drag me up here to tell you about love.'

You disgust me,' she said.

Listen to her! She's sore!'

A silence followed that circulated like an aggrieved bird. Clyde said, 'You want to hit me, huh? I kind of like you when you're sore: that's the kind of girl you are,' which made Grady light in his arms when he lifted and kissed her. 'You still want me to say it?' Her head slumped on his shoulder. 'Because I will,' he said, fooling his fingers in her hair. 'Take off your clothes--and I'll tell it to you good. ~ Truman Capote

Today"

The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: "Now," and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.

And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
"Be warm." No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars. ~ William Stafford

I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

It is astonishing to realize that growing up actually means to become one with Existence. It means to find the whole Existence within myself, it means to discover that Existence is alive in my own heart and being.
The song of a bird echoes my own inner voice, the beauty of a flower reflects my own inner beauty, a dog becomes an expression of my own unconditional love and friendship, the majestic mountains create an exstatic joy, and I discover all the shining stars of the sky within my own heart.
It is to realize that the whole Existence is alive, and that the underlying thread of consciousness is God. ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

I really love 'Pocahontas.' Today I was watching 'Aladdin.' It's a classic; you can't beat it. ~ Tinashe

I couldn't stop bawling, watching the towers come down. it was a terrible thing to happen. And a terrible thing to realize that I don't sit though the nigh crying when such horrors happen all the time. ~ Randa Abdel-Fattah

The worst thing that can happen to a comedian is to do a documentary on your life and you're watching it with an audience and there's not a laugh. ~ David Steinberg

He had the impression of Shylah pouting, and that made him happy. Just talking to her made him happy. The fact that she would circle around, hunt and find the man watching from the forest, was a complete turn-on. He liked that this woman would be his partner. ~ Christine Feehan

No, I don't think I've been defiled. But I haven't been saved, either. There's nobody who can save me right now, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. The world looks totally empty to me. Everything I see around me looks fake. The only thing thay isn't fake is that gooshy thing inside me. ~ Haruki Murakami

But I do remember this thing that this famous rabbi wrote once about how Christians build cathedrals, these gorgeous impressive structures, but Jews, with a long history of watching their buildings get destroyed, build their cathedrals in time. The High Holidays. Shabbat. Cathedrals carved out of time that can never be worn down. I know you're no Jew but I kind of think that's what you did with your summer down here. ~ Dana Reinhardt

You're staring at me," I protest between bites of crawfish etouffee.
Asher lifts a shoulder. "Just watching in case you get foodgasmic again."
I hum as I swallow a particularly decadent bite. "I'm close. You like to watch, huh?"
His pupils dilate and his jaw goes a little slack as his gaze drops to my mouth. Just like that, we're not talking about food anymore. Maybe we never were. ~ Lexi Ryan

Those beautiful girls, so happy when you acted like a gentleman and all of that, just to touch them and carry the memory of it back to my room, where dust gathered upon my typewriter and Pedro the mouse sat in his hole, his black eyes watching me through that time of dream and reverie. Pedro the mouse, a good mouse but never domesticated, refusing to be petted or house-broken. I saw him the first time I walked into my room, and that was during my heyday, when The Little Dog Laughed was in the current August issue. It was five months ago, the day I got to town by bus from Colorado with a hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket and big plans in my head. I had a philosophy in those days. I was a lover of man and beast alike, and Pedro was no exception; but cheese got expensive, Pedro called all his friends, the room swarmed with them, and I had to quit it and feed them bread. They didn't like bread. I had spoiled them and they went elsewhere, all but Pedro the ascetic who was content to eat the pages of an old Gideon Bible. ~ John Fante

Solin seemed to take his brother's challenge in stride as he
turned to Geary. "So tell me, lovely lady, where on earth did
you happen to find my wayward brother?"
She glanced at Arik over her shoulder to see him watching
her before she answered.
"Floating in the sea, but he won't tell me how it is he came to
be there."
"Knowing Arik, I'm sure he angered someone who threw him
in, hoping he'd drown."
"Actually they threw me in hoping I'd land on someone else
and drown them.
Unfortunately, you swam away too fast. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I would love to get a place out in the country and spend my idle time just remodeling and planting seeds and watching them grow. ~ Joe Lando

Ethan nodded and fell in line behind Nadia, who trotted back up the stairs, her hair bouncing on her shoulders as she moved. Really - it was like watching a shampoo commercial. ~ Chloe Neill

The natural/supernatural distinction itself, and the near-equation of 'supernatural' with 'superstition', are scarecrows that Enlightenment thought has erected in its fields to frighten away anyone following the historical argument where it leads. It is high time the birds learned to take no notice. ~ N. T. Wright

Amory Lovins says the primary design criteria he uses is the question "How do we love all the children?" Not just our children, not just the ones who look like us or who have resources, not just the human children but the young of birds and salmon and redwood trees. When we love all the children, when that love is truly sacred to us in the sense of being most important, then we have to take action in the world to enact that love. We are called to make the earth a place where all the children can thrive. ~ Starhawk

LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg "pate". ~ Ambrose Bierce

I carve stone. I've got hammers and chisels and I carve from sandstone. I just did a big mural of birds and trees. ~ Peter Weir

I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens. ~ Quincy Jones

Everything is the same spirit watching itself through the eyes of different observers. ~ Deepak Chopra

When there is this simple, clear watching and listening, then there is an awareness - awareness of the colour of those flowers, red, yellow, white, of the spring leaves, the stems, so tender, so delicate, awareness of the heavens, the earth and those people who are passing by. They have been chattering along that long road, never looking at the trees, at the flowers, at the skies and the marvellous hills. They are not even aware of what is going on around them. They talk a great deal about the environment, how we must protect nature and so on, but it seems they are not aware of the beauty and the silence of the hills and the dignity of a marvellous old tree. They are not even aware of their own thoughts, their own reactions, nor are they aware of the way they walk, of their clothes. It does not mean that they are to be selfcentred in their watching, in their awareness, but just be aware. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Look how the smaller birds greet the sun, with so much merry chirruping and so much outpouring of song! It is their way of expressing worship for the only Light they can know, an outer one. But man can also know the inner Sun, the Light of the Overself. How much more reason has he to chirp and sing than the little birds! Yet how few man feel gratitude for such privilege. ~ Paul Brunton

In her experience, there were only two kinds of guys: the ones into sports and the ones into video gaming. It seemed guys had to be obsessed with something, whether it was watching a game or playing in it or keeping some weird collection related to it. ~ Victoria Kahler

Only a single bird

is singing.

The air is cloning it.

We hear through mirrors. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

People will envy you, cut you down, tell lies and despise you, all the while they're watching you.
Let them watch you rise above and succeed. Let go of the negativity and the ill minded. Some people are so blinded. ~ Elizabeth Blade

A Tribute to the Kite ...
Oh such joy what a splendor has never
been heard, of a string that would lend you the wings of a bird. ~ Sara Loo

I feel like everyone wants to make a movie that they feel passionate about watching. ~ Mike Birbiglia

I wish I were a bird. I'd fly all the way up to the clouds and look down on this place, and then I'd go far away and never come back. ~ Jason Medina

For in the forest someone is always watching and someone is always listening! ~ Nancy B. Brewer

I can tell by the constant shift of his eyes that he is watching the people around us-striving to see only them and to forget himself. ~ Veronica Roth

Some newspapers are fit only to line the bottom of bird cages. ~ Spiro T. Agnew

There had been a popular joke on Freedom, started by a man named Calder. Looking down from space, he had said, the dominant life forms on Earth were obviously the cereals and other grasses. They occupied all the most desirable and fertile land; and they had tamed insects and animals to care for them. In particular, they had domesticated the bipeds to nurture and cultivate them and to save and plant their seed. Now, watching the farmers, Alex could easily imagine that they were worshiping and genuflecting before their masters. ~ Larry Niven

I started my career by becoming a stalker, watching women in the street, the way they greet each other. I thought if I could capture some of that expression, that depth of emotion, it will make me interesting to watch as an actor. ~ Bob Hoskins

If you were sitting quietly on your couch, waiting for your girlfriend to come back inside so you could finish watching your movie, and while you were waiting, someone called you up and said "I'll give you a million dollars if you can guess what's going to happen next," you absolutely would not guess "I am going to be brutally and unexpectedly attacked by a goose in my own home." Even if you had a hundred guesses, you would not guess that. ~ Allie Brosh

I only come to life when there are people watching. ~ Red Skelton

In my opinion, if most urban meat-eaters were to visit an industrial broiler house, to se how the birds are raised, and could see the birds being "harvested" and then being "processed" in a poultry processing plant, they would not be impressed and some, perhaps many of them would swear off eating chicken and perhaps all meat. ~ Peter Cheeke

Work like you don't need money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like no one's watching. ~ Unknown Author 909

I love you," I said quickly, watching her as she wrapped her arms around her waist. "I know I'm not good at it, but I'm fucking trying. ~ Nicole Jacquelyn

The virus seemed to be thriving on his misery, relentlessly tearing through his insides.
Every day it made its rounds through his body. It started at his fingers, making them itch to touch her until he could almost feel her fleshy lips beneath his thumb, the silky strands of her hair sliding through his fingers. It would then move up to his arms, creating an urge to hold her, an urge that could not be fulfilled.
Next it went for his eyes, causing him to see her everywhere, in every little thing. He would see her in the kitchen, making coffee. He would see her cuddled up on the sofa, watching T.V. He had to blink several times before he realised that she wasn't really there. It would then move to his heart, ruthlessly choking it until it was so heavy and so sore, he could feel the pain of losing her in every beat.
And then, finally, just as night fell, it would attack his brain, invoking images of her.
Thoughts and memories and dreams. He could not take much more. It was slowly driving him insane. He could not break out of these shackles. ~ Jacqueline Francis - The Journal

There's nothing like watching a live performance of, frankly, anything. You have to make sure that people believe everything is improvised. I could not stress enough how little we [actors] prepare and what small amount of time we put in before these shows. ~ Amy Poehler

Okay, it's like this. You wake up, you watch TV, and you get in the car and you listen to the radio. You go to your little job or your little school, but you're not going to hear about that on the 6:00 news, since guess what. Nothing is really happening. You read the paper, or if you're into that sort of thing you read a book, which is just the same as watching only even more boring. You watch TV all night, or maybe you go out so you can watch a movie, and maybe you'll get a phone call so you can tell your friends what you've been watching. And you know, it's got so bad that I've started to notice, the people on TV? Inside the TV? Half the time they're watching TV. Or if you've got some romance in a movie? What to they do but go to a movie? All those people, Marlin," he invited the interviewer in with a nod. "What are they watching?"
After an awkward silence, Marlin filled in, "You tell us, Kevin."
"People like me. ~ Lionel Shriver

You know, you'd do a better job of convincing the men if you dipped your wick in a pussy or two."
Cillian's low voice made him tense. The man stood next to Sean's barstool, watching the sexual festivities in boredom.
"I have a girlfriend," he mumbled.
"I'm sure she won't mind."
Sean glanced at the naked women littering the room, picturing the look on Bailey's face if he admitted to "dipping his wick" in a prostie. "She'd rip my balls off," he said dryly. ~ Elle Kennedy

When you're watching Psycho, there' s that moment when you have a visceral reaction to watching someone being stabbed. And then you have the intellectual revelation that you're not, and that's where the celebration comes in. ~ Penn Jillette

A drunken party girl and her equally drunken escort got onto the elevator at that moment. The girl spotted Drake and lurched toward him, an inviting smile on her face as she thrust her barely concealed breasts at him. "Hello, handsome. Would you hold me against you if I told you it was beautiful?"

I pushed myself between her and Drake. "He's very handsome, isn't he? And verytaken."

"Fat bitch," she snapped, sulking for a moment until she spotted Pál. Her companion slouched against the wall of the elevator, too far gone to care, I guess.

The door opened at our floor and we exited, leaving the drunken woman to pout as Pál avoided her grasp. I stopped just outside the door, pulled on Drake's fire, and set alight a ring at her feet. She shrieked and flapped her arms wildly as the doors started to close. I drew a quick ward on them, and before the outer doors blocked my way, mentally stamped out the fire. I turned to find Drake watching me with crossed arms and a cocked eyebrow.

"What?" I asked, trying unsuccessfully to bat my eyelashes at him.

"You locked them in there with fire?"

"There was a fire extinguisher," I said. "Of course, she's probably too drunk to notice it or know how to use it, but that's hardly my problem."

Drake continued to give me the Eyebrow of Much Displeasure.

"There were sprinklers as well. They're sure to go off at some point…oh, for heaven's sake, Drake! What sort of p ~ Katie MacAlister