Canary Quotes

All of them had been give a makeover. Leo was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool
belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat.
"God, Leo." Piper tried not to laugh. "I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt."
"Hey, shut up!"
"I think he looks good," said Coach Hedge. "'Course, I look better."
The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a
matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate.
"Well," Jason said, "at least your mom overlooked me."
Piper knew that wasn't exactly true. Looking at him, her heart did a little tap dance. Jason was dressed simply in jeans and a clean purple T-shirt, like
he'd worn at the Grand Canyon. He had new track shoes on, and his hair was newly trimmed. His eyes were the same color as the sky. Aphrodite's
message was clear: This one needs no improvement.
And Piper agreed. ~ Rick Riordan

Love?
Yes.
Gideon chuckled.
Why did you say yes like that?
Oh, I thought you were asking me a question.
I see.
Then he truly did see what she meant, and his heart flipped over in his chest.
Darling?
Gideon smiled at the warmth the endearment flooded him with.
Yes, Neliss?
Oh, nothing. Just fulfilling my end of the deal.
The deal?
Yes. You made me a deal.
You lost me, he sighed.
Legna lifted her head, propped an elbow up against the pillow of his chest, and settled her chin in her palm so she could look down at him.
"You said that I would get something very special if I called you that."
"Did I?" he asked, his eyes brightening with speculation as he thought back on it. "Actually, I think you have that confused with the deal about saying my name."
"I like your name," she said with a smile. "I always thought mine was awful snobbish. But yours has me beat hands down."
"My name is one of the finest and oldest names in all of our history."
"That's only because you have lived to be such an older tosser."
"Tosser?"
"British vernacular, luv."
"What are you, my dialect coach all of a sudden? Is this your idea of postcoital pillow talk?"
Legna giggled, apologizing with a clinging kiss on his lips. It clearly calmed him, making him smile in a very cat-versus-canary way.
"Is there something you would prefer I say?" she asked compliantly.
"That yes a few sentences ba ~ Jacquelyn Frank

She was wearing a canary-yellow two-piece bathing suit, one piece of which she would not actually be needing for another nine or ten years. ~ J.D. Salinger

He would ask her, of course, and they would honeymoon at the Canary Inn, but that particular weekend wouldn't be about forever, not just yet. It would be about the discovery Bessie made, about love, how it boomerangs toward you on quiet feet and tugs softly, never raging or insisting on anything other than recognition, and an unencumbered path of return. ~ Vera Jane Cook

You should see what she's wearing, Callie. It's velvet. Canary yellow velvet. Turban to match. She looks like a furry banana. ~ Sarah MacLean

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. ~ E. M. Forster

today it is clear that Indigenous peoples everywhere are-and always have been-the miner's canary on a global scale. In a hyper-industrialized, super-exploitative world, what happens to indigenous peoples will eventually happen to everyone. ~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz & Dina Gilio-Whitaker

Measles is probably the best argument for why there needs to be global health, and why we have to think about it as a global public good. Because in a sense, measles is the canary in the coal mine for immunization. It is, you know, highly transmissible. The vaccine costs 15 cents, so it's not - you know, shouldn't be an issue in terms of cost. ~ Seth Berkley

He wore pink linen slacks, white sneakers and a canary yellow open-neck shirt. He evidently thought himself hot stuff. ~ Basil Copper

Love is essential for happiness, but the person who loves so deeply that his or her happiness is placed entirely in the hands of another, resembles the little lamb who crept into the den of the nice, gentle little wolf and begged to be permitted to lie down and go to sleep, or the canary ~ Napoleon Hill

I stood transfixed, the silence ringing in my ears. From the field of wild grasses; cocksfoot, tufted hair, wild oat, tall fescue, reed canary and perennial rye, their subtle shades of green, ochre and pink softly patching and blending in rustling movement, suddenly rose a small flock of starlings that had been feeding quietly unseen among the tall waving stems, the swish of their glossy wings startlingly loud in the stillness of midday. Heat held me captive. ~ Nell Grey

An Indigo Bunting let out a trill, a cheery song, reminding me of better days, of hope and happiness and all the lofty promises a blue canary can sing about. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the heady morning air. Looking within myself, I searched for the man I once was. ~ Cheryl R Cowtan

I could set from memory a replica of the perfect Still Life she laid out on the table each morning: the carefully folded Advertiser, the two canary yellow hemispheres of grapefruit in their bowls, separated by a more richly yellowed cube of butter; the sky blue milk-jug and matching sugar bowl filled to the brim with their differently textured whitenesses; the pot of tea snug in its knitted navy blue cosy, the steam that rose invisibly from its spout suddenly rendered visible, swirling, where it entered the slanting morning light. ~ Peter Goldsworthy

Fly safe, little canary; I'll miss you. ~ E.V. Greig

And he supposed it might not be the best of days. But then, he was flying the mails and was not expected to squat on the ground like a frightened canary every time there was a cloud in the sky. If a pilot showed an obvious preference for flying only in the best conditions he soon found himself looking for work. This was the way of his life and he had always ascended when others had found excuse to keep their feet on the ground. ~ Ernest K. Gann

When an incidental color or a random fragrance takes possession of our imagination, we can unexpectedly blossom into a new entity as it gives us wings and enlightens our horizon, just like canary birds that feel stimulated and start singing as soon as they sense the radiance of the sun through the reflection of the skylight. ('"Côté cour…Côté jardin" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

Right and responsibility go hand in hand. You can't give rights to those who are not responsible. If you want to let your canary out of the cage, the first thing you would do is to kick your cat out of the house. This does not mean you don't love your cat, but he has no right to stay in the house because he can't act responsibly. It would be foolish to wait until he kills the canary and then punish him. You already know the cat can't be trusted. The problem with Muslims is that they too can't be trusted and can't act responsibly. ~ Ali Sina

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?"
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest though bold Robin Hood
Would, wit his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can
"I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. ~ John Keats

Three rabbits, two cats, three parakeets, a dove, two parrots, three turkeys, two geese, a canary, and nine ducks at last count were just about what Noah had started with, and he never brought his animals into the house. ~ Bob Tarte

The canary bird in the coal mine theory of the arts: artists should be treasured as alarm systems. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I thought that there was only one kind of love, one that developed instantaneously and struck you like a bolt of lightning, made you irrational and selfish like it did my parents. I realized too late that love took different forms and the one we had - " He cupped her face. "It was there, the first day we met, growing "gradually from friendship into what's inside my heart now."
He brought her hand to his chest. "It's there, steady, constant, making my heart beat for you, making my heart race when you're near, making my heart sing like a goddamn canary when you're happy. I never thought this kind of love existed until I had lost you. ~ Marian Tee

We're performing several shows in the Canary Islands. ~ George Duke

For the first part of the journey Maia kept her eyes on the side of the road. Now that she was really leaving her friends it was hard to hold back her tears.
She had reached the gulping stage when she heard a loud snapping noise and turned her head. Miss Minton had opened the metal clasp of her large black handbag and was handing her a clean handkerchief, embroidered with the initial A.
"Myself," said the governess in her deep gruff voice, "I would think how lucky I was. How fortunate."
"To go to the Amazon, you mean?"
"To have so many friends who were sad to see me go."
"Didn't you have friends who minded you leaving?"
Miss Minton's thin lips twitched for a moment.
"My sister's canary, perhaps. If he had understood what was happening. Which is extremely doubtful. ~ Eva Ibbotson

The canary began to sing again. The sun had struck it, and its throat and tiny breast had filled with song. Francis gazed at it for a long time, not speaking, his mouth hanging half opened, his eyes dimmed with tears.
"The canary is like man's soul," he whispered finally. "It sees bars round it, but instead if despairing, it sings. It sings, and wait and see, Brother Leo: one day its song shall break the bars. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

there was a certain twinkle in his eye, a knowing cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that drew me in. ~ Matt Converse

Being proud of something is a very tricky word and I sometimes think it has a bad connotation. I don't feel proud, I feel grateful. I'm lucky. ~ David Canary

A caged canary is safe but not free. ~ Walter E. Williams

and the moon passes over the sun and nothing changes and nothing is learned because you have lost your bucket and shovel and no longer care. What if you regain the surface and open your sack and find, instead of treasure, a beast which jumps at you? Or you may not come back at all. The winches may jam, the scaffolding buckle, the air conditioning collapse. You may glance up one day and see by your headlamp the canary keeled over in its cage. You may reach into a cranny for pearls and touch a moray eel. You yank on your rope; it is too late. ~ Annie Dillard

That's what the cat said to the canary when he swallowed him - 'You'll be all right.' ~ Alvah Bessie

Social media is the ultimate canary in the coal mine ~ Jay Baer

The Canary Islands offer special incentives to companies looking at potential filming locations, so it was only logical for me to help the local government make connections with major U.S. film studios like Universal, Fox, Sony, Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, CBS, Viacom, Comcast, HBO, Netflix, Warner Brothers etc. ~ James Costos

Every spring the meadow in front of the house became an ocean of canary-colored mustard blossoms, and when a wind came up, it was like watching a sea of rippling golden waves rising and falling with the breeze like breakers just before they pound into a reef. ~ Marlon Brando

Don't save the canary. Fix the coal mine. ~ Seth Godin

We went to Denmark twice and Germany and also to the Canary Isles one year. I remember once when we were playing Dresden in Germany. ~ Dixie Dean

Like the canary in the coal mine, the climate changes already evident in the Arctic are a call to action. ~ Susan Collins

Plant life is like the canary in the cage. When it starts to die off, we know we have problems. To ignore plant die off would be like the human race committing suicide. Human extinction would surely follow. ~ Steven Magee

Since that day I saw you in chemistry class with thatt canary yellow shirt, I wanted to make every day Christmas for you. ~ A.S. King

Some people will tell you that Toronto, in the summer, is the nothing more than a cesspool of pollution, garbage, and the smells of a hundred ethnicities competing for top spot in a race won historically by curry, garlic, and the occasional cauldron of boiled cabbage. Take a walk down College Street West, Gerrard Street East, or the Danforth, and you'll see; then, they add - these people, complaining - that the stench is so pervasive, so incorrigible, nor merely for lack of wind, but for the ninety-nine percent humidity, which, after a rainstorm, adds an eradicable bottom-note of sweaty Birkenstocks and the organic tang of decaying plant life. This much is true; there is, however, more to the story. Take a walk down the same streets and you'll find racks of the most stunning saris - red with navy brocade, silver, canary, vermillion and chocolate; marts with lahsun and adrak, pyaz and pudina; windows of gelato, zeppole, tiramisu; dusty smoke shops with patio-bistros; you'll find dove-white statuary of Olympian goddesses, mobs in blue jerseys, primed for the World Cup - and more, still, the compulsory banter of couples who even after forty years can turn foul words into the bawdiest, more unforgettable laughter (and those are just the details). Beyond them is the container, the big canvas brushed with parks and valleys and the interminable shore; a backdrop of ferries and islands, gulls and clouds - sparkles of a million wave-tips as the sun decides which colours to leave on it ~ Cory Ingram

Entomologist Dr. Ovid Byron speaking to television journalist, Tina, who says, re. global warming, "Scientists of course are in disagreement about whether this is happening and whether humans have a role."
He replies:
"The Arctic is genuinely collapsing. Scientists used to call these things the canary in the mine. What they say now is, The canary is dead. We are at the top of Niagara Falls, Tina, in a canoe. There is an image for your viewers. We got here by drifting, but we cannot turn around for a lazy paddle back when you finally stop pissing around. We have arrived at the point of an audible roar. Does it strike you as a good time to debate the existence of the falls?" p.367 ~ Barbara Kingsolver

My answer provided me with the first smile I'd seen on William's face. It was more a grin, a cat-catches-the-canary kind of grin that froze me in place. Had I been more intuitive then, I would've known of the things to come. ~ Paloma Beck

You are not called to be a canary in a cage. You are called to be an eagle, and to fly sun to sun, over continents. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Israel is the canary in the mine. What happens to Israel will eventually happen to America itself. ~ David Horowitz

[Magnus] was wearing canary-yellow pajamas, and on his feet were green slippers with alien faces, complete with sproingy atennae. ~ Cassandra Clare

Internet trolling wasn't just a symptom, it was a canary. Trolls tested the boundaries of how far society would allow racism, misogyny, and transphobia to be normalized. Would anyone do anything? Would anyone take action? Would anyone powerful take this seriously? The answer turned out to be no. Those of us on the receiving end begged for help, and were told to grow a thicker skin, because the Internet "isn't real life." Until, surprise, the Internet became president, and we as a society were so inured to hate speech - our boundaries had been so thoroughly obliterated and "political correctness" so stigmatized - that we had no defense. There ~ Lindy West

Do you think I like sending out agents to do my dirty work? Do you think I get my thrills living vicariously? Do you think I don't know hurt? Do you think I don't know hurt? You don't know hurt, sister! I can't get off the mat to take down Lynx on my own-- but you can, and by God, you will-- ~ Chuck Dixon

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf. ~ Anton Chekhov

In mid-September Soufan talked to an al-Qaeda prisoner named Ramzi Binalshibh, who was chained naked to the floor in a CIA black prison at the Bagram air base outside Kabul. He said he was starting to obtain "valuable actionable intelligence" before CIA officers ordered him to stop talking forty-five minutes later. On September 17, they flew their prisoner to a second black site in Morocco, then on to Poland; under extreme duress he described plots to crash airplanes into Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London. He was also diagnosed as a schizophrenic. ~ Tim Weiner

When an arguer argues dispassionately, he thinks only of the argument, and the reader cannot help thinking of the argument too. If he had written dispassionately ... had used indisputable proofs to establish his argument and had shown no trace of wishing that the result should be one would thing rather than another, one would not have been angry either. One would have accepted the fact as one accepts that a pea is green or a canary yellow. ~ Virginia Woolf

I also know that the shock of Annabel's death consolidated the frustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle to any further romance throughout the cold years of my youth. The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection that must remain incomprehensible to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained youngsters of today. Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Lolita, had you loved me thus! ~ Vladimir Nabokov

A caged canary is secure; but it is not free. It is easier for free men to resist terrorism from afar than tyranny from within. ~ Chuck Baldwin

If you asked why the post had not come, or why the boat did not sail for England, or why your coffee was cold, or why your boots were not cleaned, or why your window was shut, or why the canary didn't sing,-you would always be sure to be told, c'est la guerre! ~ Louise Mack

The functions of the human frame are, broadly speaking, known. They are a country, anyhow, that has been charted and mapped out. But outside that lie huge tracts of undiscovered country, which certainly exist, and the real pioneers of knowledge are those who, at the cost of being derided as credulous and superstitious, want to push on into
those misty and probably perilous places. I felt that I could be of more use by setting out without compass or knapsack into the mists than by sitting in a cage like a canary and chirping about what was known. Besides, teaching is very very bad for a man who knows himself only to be a learner: you only need to be a self-conceited ass to teach. ~ E.F. Benson

If all currencies are moving up or down together, the question is: relative to what? Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it. ~ Alan Greenspan

Quinces are ripe...when they are the yellow of canary wings in midflight. they are ripe when their scent teases you with the snap of green apples and the perfumed embrace of coral roses. but even then quinces remain a fruit, hard and obstinate--useless...until they are simmered, coddled for hours above a low, steady flame. add honey and water and watch their dry, bone-colored flesh soak-up the heat, coating itself in an opulent orange, not of the sunrises that you never see but of the insides of tree-ripened papayas, a color you can taste. to answer your question__love is not a bowl of quinces yellowing in a blue and white china bowl, seen but untouched__. ~The Book of Salt ~ Monique Truong

Chestnut brown canary, ruby throated sparrow, sing a song, don't be long, thrill me to the marrow. ~ Sidney Crosby

Perhaps I expected to look in and find a giant canary, stretched out on a carpet of dust, songless, capable of only heart murmurs for talk. ~ Ray Bradbury

Sand can be any shade of yellow, from peroxide blond to canary, or even with a tinge of pink.
Yellow sand is tender. ~ Herta Muller

If any country was a mine-shaft canary for the reintroduction of cholera, it was Haiti - and we knew it. And in retrospect, more should have been done to prepare for cholera ... which can spread like wildfire in Haiti ... This was a big rebuke to all of us working in public health and health care in Haiti. ~ Paul Farmer

People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent. ~ J.K. Rowling

It took only one gunshot. His brother and the canary were silenced forever, in front of his eyes ... ~ Refaat Alareer

You can't soar like an eagle and crap like a canary. ~ Ed Sabol

A sprawling North London parkland, composed of oaks, willows and chestnuts, yews and sycamores, the beech and the birch; that encompasses the city's highest point and spreads far beyond it; that is so well planted it feels unplanned; that is not the country but is no more a garden than Yellowstone; that has a shade of green for every possible felicitation of light; that paints itself in russets and ambers in autumn, canary-yellow in the splashy spring; with tickling bush grass to hide teenage lovers and joint smokers, broad oaks for brave men to kiss against, mown meadows for summer ball games, hills for kites, ponds for hippies, an icy lido for old men with strong constitutions, mean llamas for mean children and, for the tourists, a country house, its façade painted white enough for any Hollywood close-up, complete with a tea room, although anything you buy there should be eaten outside with the grass beneath your toes, sitting under the magnolia tree, letting the white blossoms, blush-pink at their tips, fall all around you. Hampstead Heath! Glory of London! Where Keats walked and Jarman fucked, where Orwell exercised his weakened lungs and Constable never failed to find something holy. ~ Zadie Smith

It is a pity that so many Americans today think of the Indian as a romantic or comic figure in American history without contemporary significance. In fact, the Indian plays much the same role in our society that the Jews played in Germany. Like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith. ~ Felix S. Cohen

Fear sucks. Because you never know when it will attack. Sometimes it sneaks up behind you, giggling like your best girlfriend from seventh grade. Then it whacks you on the back of the head, takes you straight to your knees before you realize what hit you. Other times you can see it coming, just a dot on the horizon, but you're like a canary in a cage. All you can do is hang in there and hope you don't get motion sickness and puke all over the newspapers. ~ Jennifer Rardin

Okay, woman. Spit that canary out and wipe those feathers off your chin. What the heck happened to you? Last night you were crying over a laxative commercial on TV. ~ Katherine Allred

: "It's all chemicals, says the biochemistry text. Chlorophylls keep the leaves green while thy are green, carotenoids – as in butter, corn, canary feathers – turn them yellow when the chlorophyll goes. Tannin adds the browns, the bronzes; something called anthocyanin turns leaves red if the sap of the plant is acidic, blue or purple if it is alkaline. Color is a substance, says the chemist." – John Jerome, Stone Work: Reflections on Serious Play & Other Aspects of Country Life, p. 140. ~ John Jerome

I'm a Beethoven freak. I listen to him all the time. ~ David Canary

Personally." My mother digs a smile into the side of her cheek. "I'm rooting for Logan."
Logan produces a grin that suggests he's the cat that ate the canary, and suddenly I'm feeling rather canary-ish. ~ Addison Moore

You look like the cat that ate the canary."
"As a vegetarian, I object to that metaphor."
Scout grinned teethily at me. "As a carnivore, I object to your pickines. Now spill the goods."
-Scout and Lily ~ Chloe Neill

I want to hear a million robins making a frightful racket. I sort of like birds." "All women are birds," he ventured. "What kind am I?" - quick and eager. "A swallow, I think, and sometimes a bird of paradise. Most girls are sparrows, of course - see that row of nurse-maids over there? They're sparrows - or are they magpies? And of course you've met canary girls - and robin girls." "And swan girls and parrot girls. All grown women are hawks, I think, or owls." "What am I - a buzzard?" She laughed and shook her head. "Oh, no, you're not a bird at all, do you think? You're a Russian wolfhound." Anthony remembered that they were white and always looked unnaturally hungry. But then they were usually photographed with dukes and princesses, so he was properly flattered. "Dick's ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

A woman once held a Canary in the palm of her hand and stroked her and whispered a careful warning. The canary, seeking some freedom to fly, went into the mine while the woman watched in worry. The mine was filled with toxic gases and the Canary began to sing. She flew into danger, realized the threats around her, and wished to return to a place of refuge. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

Is there any sight more exquisite than a field of canary yellow rapeseed on a day of blinding sunlight? The colour appears to transcend structure and live and dance and breathe. Nature reveals its primordial palette and invites insects to pollinate and Man to dare to dream of creating something so vibrant, shockingly intense and timeless. It is the golden ignition of the divine spark of creativity writ large. ~ Stewart Stafford

As the bartender struck a match to light her cigarette, she put her hand on his wrist to steady it. Travis saw him jump, draw back. He held his wrist, blew on it, looked at her reproachfully. Travis said: 'Why, you scratched him, Sarah.'

'Did I?' And as she turned and looked at him, he saw her hand twitch a little, and drew still further away from her. 'What - what's got into you?' he faltered.

There was some kind of tension spreading all around the horseshoe-shaped bar, emanating from her. All the cordiality, the sociability, was leaving it. Cheery conversations even at the far ends of it faltered and died, and the speakers looked around them as though wondering what was putting them so on edge. A heavy leaden pall of restless silence descended, as when a cloud goes over the sun. One or two people even turned and moved away reluctantly, as though they hadn't intended to but didn't like it at the bar any more. The gaunt-faced woman in red and black was the center of all eyes, but the looks sent her were not the admiring looks of men for a well-dressed woman; they were the blinking petrified looks a blacksnake would get in a poultry yard. Even the barman felt it. He dropped and smashed a glass, a thing he hadn't done since he'd been working on the ship. Even the canary felt it, and stood shivering pitifully on its perch, emitting an occasional cheep as though for help. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight") ~ Cornell Woolrich

There's a great deal of child left in me and acting is fun. It's a make believe thing. ~ David Canary

Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health. The great will not condescend to take anything seriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were the building of cities, or the eradication of old and foolish churches and nations, which have cumbered the earth long thousands of years. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did this mean he was about to tell her something he wouldn't normally? Her ears perked - figuratively, since her ears were now feather-covered holes in the sides of her head.
He laughed softly. "You know, you are almost enjoyable to talk to, when you do not say anything back."
She willed the water in the tub to strike him in the face.
There was a loud splash. "Hey!" He sounded surprised, but not unpleasantly so. "Interesting. You are still capable of elemental powers. But stop - or I will feed you to the castle cats."
She struck him again. ~ Sherry Thomas

Alas, yes. Unfortunately our little canary has gone Section 2 on us. He's absolutely Upney;* halfway to Dagenham, in fact. We're keeping him here because he's not deemed a hazard to himself, but so far he's confessed to assassinating Margaret Thatcher - ~ Charles Stross

Mrs. Grant glanced at her
husband. "She's always so fidgety.
Like a canary." She narrowed her
eyes at me. "I hate canaries."
I squeaked again. But not like a
canary. I hoped. ~ A&E Kirk

Knowing without any doubt that the newly elected cannot help but be his zombies, Obama is the cat who swallowed the canary. ~ Judi McLeod

Teenagers, especially girl ones, seem like the perfect canary-in-the-coal-mine characters to me. They capture American culture and its perversion, its hypocrisy - how absorbed we are with youth and beauty and sexualized imagery, for instance, while preaching abstinence and modesty. ~ Antonya Nelson

Canary light of oil lamps ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Would you mind getting a picture of us?
"Anything for one of Miss McLachlan's fans."
He looks like the cat that swallowed the canary.
"I take some mighty fine pictures of Miss McLachlan, if I do say so myself. ~ Georgia Cates

I want to tell them, stay in the cage. There are bet­ter things than free­dom. There are worse things than liv­ing a long bored life in some stranger's house and then dy­ing and go­ing to ca­nary heav­en. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Under the redwood tree my grave was laid, and I beguiled my true love to lie down. The stream of our kiss put a waterway around the world, where love like a refugee sailed in the last ship. My hair made a shroud, and kept the coyotes at bay while we wrote our cyphers with anatomy. The winds boomed triumph, our spines seemed overburdened, and our bones groaned like old trees, but a smile like a cobweb was fastened across the mouth of the cave of fate.

Fear will be a terrible fox at my vitals under my tunic of behaviour.
Oh, canary, sing out in the thunderstorm, prove your yellow pride. Give me a reason for courage or a way to be brave. But nothing tangible comes to rescue my besieged sanity, and I cannot decipher the code of the eucalyptus thumping on my roof.
I am unnerved by the opponents of God, and God is out of earshot. I must spin good ghosts out of my hope to oppose the hordes at my window. If those who look in see me condescend to barricade the door, they will know too much and crowd in to overcome me.
The parchment philosopher has no traffic with the night, and no conception of the price of love. With smoky circles of thought he tries to combat the fog, and with anagrams to defeat anatomy. I posture in vain with his weapons, even though I am balmed with his nicotine herbs.
Moon, moon, rise in the sky to be a reminder of comfort and the hour when I was brave. ~ Elizabeth Smart

By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the other. "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!" The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, I thought. ~ Charles Dickens

The honky-tonk bartender, who doubled as bouncer, waiter, and cashier, was in no mood to compromise. Mercy was not in him. He came out around the open end of the long counter, waddled threatening across the floor in a sullen, red-faced fury and began to shake the inanimate figure lying across the table with its head bedded on its arms. "Hey, you! Do your sleeping in the gutter!"

If you gave these bums an inch; they took a yard. And this one was a particularly glaring example of the genus bar-fly. He was in here all the time like this, inhaling smoke and then doing a sunset across the table. He'd been in here since four this afternoon. The boss and he, who were partners in the joint - the bartender called it jernt - would have been the last ones to claim they were running a Rainbow Room, but at least they were trying to give the place a little class, keep it above the level of a Bowery smoke-house; they even paid a guy to pound the piano and a canary to warble three times a week. And then bums like this had to show up and give the place a bad look!

He shook the recumbent figure again, more roughly than the first time. Shook him so violently that the whole reedy table under him rattled and threatened to collapse. "Come on, clear out, I said! Pay me for what you had and get outa here!" ("I'm Dangerous Tonight") ~ Cornell Woolrich

The shower turned out to be glorious once I adjusted the water to a cool enough temperature so as not to produce any steam. I washed my hair, noticing that my favorite shampoo suddenly smelled like Hades--as did my trusty facial scrub, which had so loyally saved my face from looking like the back of a lizard on the day of my wedding. Just as I was rinsing the last of the suds from my hair, Marlboro Man suddenly burst through the door of the bathroom and yelled, "Hey!"
I screamed bloody murder from the startle, then screamed again because I was naked and feeling queasy and unattractive. Then I felt sick from the excitement. "Hi," I managed, grabbing a towel from the rack and wrapping it around myself as quickly as I could.
"Gotcha," he said, smiling the sexiest smile I'd ever seen while in such a sick state. Then he stopped and looked at me. "Are you okay?" He must have noticed the verdant glow of my skin.
"I'll be honest," I said, making my way back to our bedroom. "It's pretty bad. I'm going to try to get in to the doctor today and see if there's anything he can do about it." I fell backward onto the bed. "My ears must have been permanently damaged or something."
Marlboro Man moved toward me, looking like the cat that had just eaten the canary. "Scared you, didn't I?" he chuckled as he wrapped his arms around my towel-cloaked body. I breathed him in, wrapping my arms around him, too.
Then I shot up and raced back to the bathroom so I could throw up a ~ Ree Drummond

To be able to make a good living in a challenging medium like soap operas is great. The best is that I get to act and am rewarded for it. And the people I work with are great. Funny, intelligent, hard working. They're all great to be around. ~ David Canary

Anyone who's had a visit from them has discovered
an important fact about life: namely, that misery grows up all by itself, in a
hidden place, without your even being aware of it, and then one day, suddenly, it
knocks on your door. Happiness is just the opposite. Happiness is a cute little
flower on your veranda, or a baby canary. You can see it growing, little by little,
right before your eyes. ~ Ryu Murakami

Along the western coast of the Sahara desert, about half way between the Canary Islands and the Cape Verde Islands, lays a sand spit called Cape Barba's. In 1441, ships attached to Estêvão da Gama's fleet were sent by Prince Henry to explore the coastline south of Cape Barba's, which, five years earlier, was the farthest point reached by any of Prince Henry's captains. Although there are some conflicting stories regarding the discoveries of the mid-Atlantic islands, it is safe to assume that in 1501 João da Nova discovered Ascension Island. The desolate island remained deserted until it was rediscovered two years later on Ascension Day by Alfonso de Albuquerque. He was also the first European to discover the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. ~ Hank Bracker

Perhaps poetry will be the canary in the mine-shaft warning us of what's to come. ~ Galway Kinnell