Ghost Bird Quotes

Do we dust for fingerprints now?" I asked.
He swiveled his head back around until he was gazing at me. "Who do we look like? The Hardy Boys?"
Silas chuckled at us without looking up from the laptop screen.
Stone, C. L. (2014-01-19). Drop of Doubt: The Ghost Bird Series: #5 (Kindle Locations 945-947). Arcato Publishing. Kindle Edition. ~ C.L.Stone

Hey, Peanut," Nathan said with a smirk.
"Where've you been?" "Well we were going to Europe, but there was this big ocean in the way and North didn't want to get the bike wet, so we had to come back."
Stone, C. L. (2014-05-31). Push and Shove: The Ghost Bird Series: #6 (p. 249). Arcato Publishing. Kindle Edition. ~ C.L.Stone

I meant run out the front door. The dude had a gun. I threw my hands up. I couldn't believe him. I turned around, ready to walk out the door and make him drive back. It was late. I was a mess. I wanted to be between the sheets next to Kota and Nathan and not getting shot at while stealing a digital camera.
Stone, C. L. (2014-01-19). Drop of Doubt: The Ghost Bird Series: #5 (Kindle Locations 3840-3843). Arcato Publishing. Kindle Edition. ~ C.L.Stone

Did you finish yours, Kota?"
"Working on it now, Actually."
"How's it going?"
He sat up, turning in his chair and holding up his notebook. "I don't know. What rhymes with formaldehyde?"
My eyes widened. Gabriel laughed, rubbing his fingers against his forehead. "Dude, what kind of poem are you writing?"
Kota blinked at us. "It's about a doctor."
"Does the doctor fall in love?" Gabriel asked.
"No."
"Does someone die?"
"Not in the story, technically."
"What does he do?"
"He performs an autopsy. ~ C.L.Stone

Footfalls fell heavy behind us, like someone giving chase.
"Run," Volto said.
He didn't have to tell me that part.
Stone, C. L. (2014-01-19). Drop of Doubt: The Ghost Bird Series: #5 (Kindle Locations 4860-4861). Arcato Publishing. Kindle Edition. ~ C.L.Stone

A ghost bird might be a hawk in one place, a crow in another, depending on the context. The sparrow that shot up into the blue sky one morning might transform mid-flight into an osprey the next. This was the way of things here. There were no reasons so mighty that they could override the desire to be in accord with the tides and the passage of seasons and the rhythms underlying everything around me. ~ Jeff VanderMeer

But then she couldn't hear anyone coming," Luke said.
"God damn it," Gabriel said. He shifted his legs, moving me in the process until my body was tucked neatly into his chest, his hands against my back.
"Fuck all this. Let's just take her."
"Gabriel," I whispered. A chop landed on my head again.
"Shush," Gabriel said.
"Men are talking."

Stone, C. L. (2013-08-26). Friends vs. Family: The Ghost Bird Series: #3 (p. 58). Arcato Publishing. Kindle Edition. ~ C.L. Stone

Oh," the girl said, shaking her head. "Don't be so simple. People adore monsters. They fill their songs and stories with them. They define themselves in relation to them. You know what a monster is, young shade? Power. Power and choice. Monsters make choices. Monsters shape the world. Monsters force us to become stronger, smarter, better. They sift the weak from the strong and provide a forge for the steeling of souls. Even as we curse monsters, we admire them. Seek to become them, in some ways." Her eyes became distant. "There are far, far worse things to be than a monster. ~ Jim Butcher

In the dark behind the glare of the television, like a mannequin behind it, I could see a silhouette and it wasn't moving. It was maybe six foot high with its shoulders hunched and I blinked to make sure it was real. The TV fuzzed grey and white and black and I had a lump in my throat that I couldn't swallow away. "Rory" I whispered. Clawing out gently beneath the duvet cover, reaching for his hand. But I couldn't find it. And he didn't answer. ~ Kate Chisman

Malacca fascinates me more and more daily. There is, among other things, a mediaevalism about it. The noise of the modern world reaches it only in the faintest echoes; its sleep is almost dreamless. Its sensations seem to come out of books read in childhood. ~ Isabella Bird

The popular notion that ghosts are likely to be seen in a graveyard is not borne out by psychical research ... A haunting ghost usually haunts a place that a person lived in or frequented while alive ... Only a gravedigger's ghost would be likely to haunt a graveyard. ~ John H. Alexander

He who has lived and thought can't help
despising people in his soul;
him who has felt disturbs
the ghost of irrecoverable days;
for him there are no more enchantments;
him does the snake of memories,
him does repentance bite. ~ Alexander Pushkin

Animals of every kind live on the Other Side, .. you are not crazy if you feel the spirit of your cat rubbing against your legs, hear the sound of your dog's toenails clicking on the wood floor, or hear the familiar song your bird used to sing. Our pets do come back to visit us. ~ Sylvia Browne

Ghost shook his head as he sat on the very edge of the bed, poised to take flight if need be. The spiral under his hair felt warm, almost painful, but he resisted the urge to rub it. It never helped when he did, and he was not sure what Gerry would do if the man saw it. The Witch had a symbol she called a triskele, the ink a vivid scarlet still, but no male that had ever come for healing bore a mark like hers, or like his. He had never found the words to ask the Witch about it, about why he was marked like a witch. ~ Morwen Navarre

So long, Bird Girl,' he whispered, changing the emphasis to stress the first word. 'So long,' I agreed, because a life without him would be. ~ Annabel Pitcher

He was creating the first letters of the Slavonic alphabet. He started with rounded letters, but the Slavonic language was so wild that the ink could not hold it, and so he made a second alphabet of barred letters and caged the unruly language in them like a bird. ~ Milorad Pavic

I walked slowly back home, breathing deeply and taking in all the sights and sounds of a private country club golf course: the beeping of a distant golf cart driving in reverse, the barking of the bird dogs Dr. Burris took hunting with him every fall and winter, millions of tiny birds in triumphant song. It was the closest thing to the country that I'd known until now.
And my thoughts turned to Marlboro Man.
I was thinking of him when I walked back into the house, imagining his gorgeous voice in my ear when I heard the phone ringing in my room. I ran up the stairs, skipping three steps at a time, and answered the phone, breathless.
"Hello?" I gasped.
"Hey there," Marlboro Man said. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, I just went for a run on the golf course," I answered. As if I did it every day.
"Well, I just want you to know I'm coming to get you at five," he said. "I'm having Ree withdrawals."
"You mean since midnight, when we last saw each other?" I joked. Actually, I knew exactly what he meant.
"Yeah," he said. "That's way, way too long, and I'm not gonna put up with it anymore." I loved it when he took charge.
"Okay, then--fine," I said, surrendering. "I don't want to argue. I'll see you at five. ~ Ree Drummond

We use blue on the handle of the Alessi kettle. Blue is cool, so you're supposed to think that it's not hot. And the bird is red: you're supposed to think to be careful to remove the bird. ~ Michael Graves

It's great the way the old-time directors used to manipulate the hell out of you. You see someone dying and all of a sudden a ghost would come out and they go walking hand in hand up the stairway. ~ Sylvester Stallone

Only to the rude ear of one who is quite indifferent does the song of a bird seem always the same. ~ Rosa Luxemburg

Weeds don't need planting in well-drained soil; they don't ask for fertilizer or bits of rag to scare away the birds. They come without invitation; and they don't take the hint when you want them to go. Weeds are nobody's guests: More like squatters. ~ Norman Nicholson

When I demanded of my friend what viands he preferred,
He quoth: "A large cold bottle, and a small hot bird!" ~ Eugene Field

Charleston is an extraordinary place. There is a deep connection between the residents and nearly three hundred and fifty years of history, and those ties between daily life and the distant past are strengthened by the occasional glimpse beyond the veil. ~ James Caskey

Ten-year-old boys move differently than middle-aged women, who move differently than athletic guys, who move differently than government bureaucrats. ~ Brad Bird

Paraphrasing: An old man claimed to be a psychic. The boy devised a plan to capture a bird, and ask the old man if the bird in his hands was dead or alive. Then he would crush it or let the bird fly, either way proving the man a fraud. So he said, "Tell me old man, is the bird alive or dead?" The wise old man looked at the boy and said, "The bird is as you choose it to be. ~ Michael Hyatt

- the rusalka was kneeling beside Plain Kate on the deck. She was made of fog and shadow until Kate caught her eye, and then, all at once, she became human. She was young, mischievously sad, a fox in a story. Kate fell in love with her. And then she was gone. ~ Erin Bow

The birds and I share a natural history. It is a matter of rootedness, of living inside a place for so long that the mind and imagination fuse. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Byzantium

The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.

Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade more than man, more image than a shade;
For Hades' bobbin bound in mummy-cloth
May unwind the winding path;
A mouth that has no moisture and no breath
Breathless mouths may summon;
I hail the superhuman;
I call it death-in-life and life-in-death.

Miracle, bird or golden handiwork,
More miracle than bird or handiwork,
Planted on the starlit golden bough,
Can like the cocks of Hades crow,
Or, by the moon embittered, scorn aloud
In glory of changeless metal
Common bird or petal
And all complexities of mire or blood.

At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.

Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after spirit! The smithies break the flood,
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floo ~ W.B. Yeats

I've never liked urban myths. I've never liked pretending to believe in them; never understood why everyone else doesn't see straight through them. Why is it they've always happened to a friend of a friend - someone you've never met? Why does everyone smile and nod and pull the right faces, when they must know they're not true? Pointless. A waste of breath.
So I sneered at the myths about Scaderstone Pit. It was just an old quarry – nothing more. I never believed in the rumours of discarded dynamite. It had decayed, they said. It exploded at the slightest touch, had even blown someone's hand off. I shrugged off the talk of the toxic waste. It was dumped in the dead of night, they said. The canisters rusting away, leaking deadly poisons that could blind you, burn your lungs. I laughed at the ghost stories. You could hear the moans, they said, of quarrymen buried alive and never found. You could see their nightwalking souls, searching for their poor crushed bodies.
I didn't believe any of it – not one word. Now, after everything that's happened, I wonder whether I should've listened to those stories. Maybe then, these things would've happened to someone else, and I could've smiled and said they were impossible.
But this is not an urban myth. And it did not happen to someone else, but to me. I've set it down as best I can remember. Whether you believe it or not, is up to you. ~ Mikey Campling

Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

This time, there was the ghost of a reptile in Szatson's smile. 'I don't handle little problems. ~ Whitley Strieber

I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering. ~ Andrew Bird

All birds need to fly are the right-shaped wings, the right pressure and the right angle. ~ Daniel Bernoulli

I have a bird. Inside." She patted the flat stomach below her small breasts, and for a moment Nicholas thought she had really found food. "She sits in here. She has tangled a nest in my entrails, where she sits and tears at my breath with her beak. I look healthy to you, don't I? But inside I'm hollow and rotten and turning brown, dirt and old feathers, oozing away. Her beak will break through soon. ~ Gene Wolfe

Not every winged Creature is considered a bird or a bat. Some wings are made of magic.

- Raani York – 2013 - ~ Raani York

Today's woman must be a prostitute in the kitchen, a ghost in the bedroom, a sniper on the parapet, an octopus at sea world. ~ Rob Thompson

The things of God are understood by the Spirit of God. That Spirit is real. To those who have experienced its workings, the knowledge so gained is as real as that which is acquired through the operation of the five senses. I testify of this. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander'd
alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother - from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither - ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man - yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them - but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing. ~ Walt Whitman

After macrobiotics, Zen, and channeling, the "poor Vanishing Indian" is once more the subject of "deep and meaningful conversation" in the high rises. ~ Mary Brave Bird

Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all virtues. Be active in business, that temptation may miss her aim; the bird that sits is easily shot. ~ Benjamin Franklin

For so it is among those who shed lives every few years: they keep their deflated interior causeways, hold them running parallel with their current useable ones; ghost arteries, sleeping shrunken next to those that pump life. Hushed lymphatics, like quiet ivy alongside the speeding juice of now. Nerve trees like bone coral, hugging the whisper of bellowing communications. ~ Brian Catling

I hear hundreds of years of life. I hear wind and rain and fire and beetles. I hear the seasons changing and birds and squirrels. I hear the life of the trees this wood came from. ~ Garth Stein

Not a single bird makes its first leap from a tree without faith, and not a single animal in the jungle begins its day without faith. Faith is the flame that eliminates fear, and faith is the emperor of dreams. ~ Suzy Kassem

He was cold, standing in a wood, talking to a big black bird who was currently brunching on Bambi. ~ Neil Gaiman

Red cross donation, baby! the ghost yelled. ~ Serpent's Shadow Rick Riordan

I have never yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost. ~ John Philpot Curran

The saddest birds a season find to sing,The roughest storm a calm may soon allay;Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,That men may hope to rise yet fear to fall. ~ Robert Southwell

Someday I'll be a weather-beaten skull resting on a grass pillow,
Serenaded by a stray bird or two.
Kings and commoners end up the same,
No more enduring than last night's dream. ~ Ryokan

I was far away from home, haunted & tired with travel, in a room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, the creak of the old wood, footsteps upstairs & all the sad sounds.
I looked at the cracked high ceiling & really didn't know who I was for about 15 strange seconds.
I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger & my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.
I was halfway at the dividing line between the East of my youth & the West of my future. ~ Jack Kerouac

In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him. Irony was the final polish of the shoe, the ultimate dab of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual "There!" - yet ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. ~ Matthew McConaughey

Haunted Gulp down your wine, old friends of mine, Roar through the darkness, stamp and sing And lay ghost hands on everything, But leave the noonday's warm sunshine To living lads for mirth and wine. I met you suddenly down the street, Strangers assume your phantom faces, You grin at me from daylight places, Dead, long dead, I'm ashamed to greet Dead men down the morning street. ~ Robert Graves

Perhaps not passionate but comfortable. We could have gone on like that forever and then you came, the rambling man, with all these expatriate philosophies that we've outgrown ourselves over the past 20 years. This is really not our problem, Dick. You're leading a ghost town life, infecting everyone who comes near you with a ghost disease. Take it back, Dick. We don't need it. ~ Chris Kraus

The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

The transcendental face of art is always a form of prayer. ~ John Berger