Rattlesnake Quotes

You see de rattlesnake in de woods?' Dey say, 'Yeah.' I say 'If you bother wid him, he bite you. If you know de snake killee you, why you bother wid him?' (Oluale Kossula) ~ Zora Neale Hurston

the Texas stars shining down like rattlesnake eyes showing in a deep, dark wood. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

was crooked as a sidewinder rattlesnake. "So what ~ John Sandford

When I was young and full of grace
And spirited - a rattlesnake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor not to tell

I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract
Explain the change, the difference between
What you want and what you need, there's the key,
Your adventure for today, what do you do
Between the horns of the day?

(chorus)
I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

When I was young and give and take
And foolish said my fool awake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
Trust in your calling, make sure your calling's true
Think of others, the others think of you
Silly rule golden words make, practice, practice makes perfect,
Perfect is a fault, and fault lines change

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And change is what I believe in
I believe my shirt is wearing thin
And change is what I believe in

(repeat chorus)

When I was young and full of grace
As spirited a rattlesnake
When I was young and fever fell
My spirit, I will not tell
You're on your honor, on your honor
I believe in example
I believe my throat hurts
Example is the checker to the key

I believe my humor's wearing thin
And I believe the poles are shifting ~ Michael Stipe

RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, "Homo ventrambulans". ~ Ambrose Bierce

He will fight a rattlesnake and give it the first two bites too. ~ Navjot Singh Sidhu

Loose you're kidding, right? You're wound up tighter than a pissed-off rattlesnake. ~ Ashley Elston

The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Nature is not infallible. Nature makes mistakes. That's what evolution is all about: growth by trail and error. Nature can be stupid and cruel. Oh, my, how cruel! That's okay. There's nothing wrong with Nature being dumb and ugly because it is simultaneously--paradoxically--brilliant and superb.

But to worship the natural at the exclusion of the unnatural is to practice Organic Fascism--which is what many of my pilgrims practice. And in the best tradition of fascism, they are totally intolerant of those who don't share their beliefs; thus, they foster the very kinds of antagonism and tension that lead to strife, which they, pacifists one and all, claim to abhor. To insist that a woman who paints berry juice on her lips is somehow superior to the woman who wears Revlon lipstick is sophistry; it's smug sophistical skunkshit. Lipstick is a chemical composition, so is berry juice, and they both are effective for decorating the face. If lipstick has advantages over berry juice then let us praise that part of technology that produced lipstick. The organic world is wonderful, bot the inorganic isn't bad, either. The world of plastic and artifice offers its share of magical surprises.

A thing is good because it's good, not because it's natural. A thing is bad because it's bad, not because it's artificial. It's not a damn iota better to be bitten by a rattlesnake than shot by a gun. ~ Tom Robbins

My father was a sort of John Wayne Texan who'd worked as a cowboy when he was young. He'd participated in rattlesnake round-ups and swum with copperheads. ~ Edmund White

I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one. ~ Herman Melville

I cannot decide whether it is an illness or a sin, the need to write things down and fix the flowing world in one rigid form. Bear believed writing dulled the spirit, stilled some holy breath. Smothered it. Words, when they've been captured and imprisoned on paper, become a barrier against the world, one best left unerected. Everything that happens is fluid, changeable. After they've passed, events are only as your memory makes them, and they shift shapes over time. Writing a thing down fixes it in place as surely as a rattlesnake skin stripped from the meat and stretched and tacked to a barn wall. Every bit as stationary, and every bit as false to the original thing. Flat and still and harmless. Bear recognized that all writing memorializes a momentary line of thought as if it were final.
But I was always word-smitten. ~ Charles Frazier

If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Cudjo meetee de people at de gate and tells dem, "You see de rattlesnake in de woods?" Dey say, "Yeah." I say "If you bother wid him, he bite you. If you know de snake killee you, why you bother wid him? Same way wid my boys, you unnerstand me. If you leave my boys alone, dey not bother nobody! ~ Zora Neale Hurston

He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I've gotten rid of the yips four times but they hang in there. You know those two-foot downhill putts with a break? I'd rather see a rattlesnake. ~ Sam Snead

After a hard day of basic training, you could eat a rattlesnake. ~ Elvis Presley

Slapping a rattlesnake across the face with the back of your hand is safer than trying to fool Henry Aaron. ~ Claude Osteen

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
'The one thing I regret,' he said,
'Is that it cannot speak! ~ Lewis Carroll

To the goggling unbeliever Texans say, as people always say about their mangier dishes, 'But it's just like chicken, only tenderer.' Rattlesnake is, in fact, just like chicken - only tougher. ~ Alistair Cooke

I hate a hook. It nauseates me. I could vomit when I see one. It's like a rattlesnake in your pocket. ~ Ben Hogan

that a well-cooked polecat is as good to eat as a pig, and that stewed rattlesnake is not so ~ Arthur James Lyon Fremantle

The delicate sensitivity of a frightened rattlesnake. ~ Ross Macdonald

I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake ~ James M. Cain

PAHA SAPA PULLS HIS HAND BACK SHARPLY BUT NOT BEFORE HE feels the rattlesnake-strike shock of the dying Wasicun's ghost leaping into his fingers and flowing up his arm and into his chest. The boy lurches back in horror as the ghost burns its way up through his veins and bones like so much surging venom. ~ Dan Simmons

A rattlesnake loose in the living room tends to end all discussion of animal rights. ~ Lance Morrow

The ugliest thing in America is greed, the lust for power and domination, the lunatic ideology of perpetual Growth - with a capital G. 'Progress' in our nation has for too long been confused with 'Growth'; I see the two as different, almost incompatible, since progress means, or should mean, change for the better - toward social justice, a livable and open world, equal opportunity and affirmative action for all forms of life. And I mean all forms, not merely the human. The grizzly, the wolf, the rattlesnake, the condor, the coyote, the crocodile, whatever, each and every species has as much right to be here as we do. ~ Edward Abbey

It doesn't take time to change once you understand the problem ... Somebody hands you a rattlesnake, it doesn't take long to drop it, does it? ~ Richard Bach

The bank man had been standing quietly by our picnic table, waiting to lock up the house. Around his waist he wore a live rattlesnake for a belt. Behind it, his stomach was a black hole of hunger. ~ C.E. Medford

I asked Joe if he hated Ivy and Bucky. He said, "That would make as much sense as hating a rattlesnake. You don't hate rattlesnakes; you avoid them. ~ Maria Semple

But for that blindness which is inseparable from malice, what terrible powers of evil would it possess! Fortunately for the world, its venom, like that of the rattlesnake, when most poisonous, clouds the eye of the reptile, and defeats its aim. ~ William Gilmore Simms

He Who Would Live Forever had done an instantaneous back-of-the-envelope calculation and decided that the vicinity of the Chevrolet Suburban was a better strategic alternative than anyplace anywhere near that whitish sandy road above which a gigantic terror-chattering rattlesnake now thrashed in the grip of his boss gone berserk. ~ Tom Wolfe

Beyond the wall of the unreal city ... there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it. And then
May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God's dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night. ~ Edward Abbey

I might die from a bear attack; I could also succumb to a rattlesnake or a puma, slip down a rocky ravine, have a tree branch fall on my head, choke on beef jerky, or any other of a million unanticipated disasters. That's the thrill of backcountry exploration. My vulnerability is exquisite. If I don't watch out for me, no one else will. ~ Howard Smith

Athena's sacred plant was the olive tree, since that was her big gift to the Athenians. Her sacred animals were the owl and the snake. Supposedly, the owl was a symbol of wisdom from the heavens. The snake symbolized wisdom from the earth. Me, I never understood that. If owls were so wise, why would they go around asking Who? all the time, like they couldn't remember their own names? Snakes have never struck me as very smart, either; but apparently the Greeks thought that when snakes hissed, they were whispering important secrets. Yeah, that's right, Mr. Greek Dude. Hold that rattlesnake a little closer to your ear. He's got something to tell you. ~ Rick Riordan

Every time I come across a rattlesnake on my farm I initially react in fear and am tempted to kill it. Then I realize I wouldn't want to live in a world where all wild things - without and within - are domesticated. ~ Sam Keen

My friend has never been to a picture show, nor does she intend to: "I'd rather hear you tell the story, Buddy. That way I can imagine it more. Besides, a person my age shouldn't squander their eyes. When the Lord comes, let me see him clear." In addition to never having seen a movie, she has never: eaten in a restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except funny papers and the Bible, worn cosmetics, cursed, wished someone harm, told a lie on purpose, let a hungry dog go hungry. Here are a few things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in this county (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger, tell ghost stories (we both believe in ghosts) so tingling they chill you in July, talk to herself, take walks in the rain, grow the prettiest japonicas in town, know the recipe for every sort of oldtime Indian cure, including a magical wart remover. ~ Truman Capote

Our God is sovereign. That means there's no such thing as luck. Anything that happens to you, good or bad, must pass through His fingers first. There are no accidents with God. I like the story of the cowboy who applied for health insurance. The agent routinely asked him, 'Have you ever had any accidents?' The cowboy replied, 'Well no, I've not had any accidents. I was bitten by a rattlesnake once, and a horse did kick me in the ribs. That laid me up for a while, but I haven't had any accidents.' The agent said, 'Wait a minute. I'm confused. A rattlesnake bit you, and a horse kicked you, Weren't those accidents?' 'No, they did that on purpose. ~ Tony Evans

If it's danger you seek you can go to war, blow the whistle on someone powerful, piss off someone unhinged, walk in a field during a lightning storm, tease a rattlesnake, or lose yourself in the right embrace. Some people live for it, others suffer in spite of it. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

A Rattlesnake, if Cornered will become so angry it will bite itself. That is exactly what the harboring of hate and resentment against others is - a biting of oneself. We think we are harming others in holding these spites and hates, but the deeper harm is to ourselves. ~ E. Stanley Jones

Last week, our picture window
Produced a half-word,
Heavy and hollow,
Hit by a brown bird.
We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
And pant and labor over every intake.
I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace,
Then thought i ought to take her to a higher place.
Said, dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you,
And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view. ~ Joanna Newsom

So far he's never been bit, but there was once, deer hunt, climbing a bluff and he'd slipped, rolled down a shale slide into some kind of grotto and the whole place started buzzing. Big rattlesnake nest, twenty or so, all small but they'll kill you just the same and he'd scrambled and cranked round after round through the bolt, felt a hot white pain in his leg, dropped the gun and jumped. Once he was out of it he pulled down his pants, found the bite but it wasn't a bite, just the one hole and too big, something lodged under the skin. He cut at it for a time. Piece of copper jacket from one of his own bullets, turned out. Stood there, sun in his eyes, blood on his hands, pants full of blood and bunched at his ankles, happy as he'd been in a while.
- "Any Deadly Thing ~ Roy Kesey

The notion of general devastation had for Maria a certain sedative effect (the rattlesnake in the playpen, that was different, that was particular, that was punitive), suggested an instant in which all anxieties would be abruptly gratified, and between the earthquake prophecy and the marijuana and the cheerful detachment of the woman whose house was in the Tajunga Wash, she felt a kind of resigned tranquility. ~ Joan Didion

I have taxidermy pets that are very close to me. I have a little lizard with a head that comes on and off that I call Nicolas Cage because his face is long. And I have a big diamondback rattlesnake called Rufus, and I have some rats in jars and stuff. ~ Mackenzie Davis

I ran across a rattlesnake once in New Mexico, you know what I did with it, chopped its head off and we ate it. ~ Joe Teti

I'm not as good as a man as you are, Sundown. I find it hard to give an enemy my back under any circumstance." – Ren
"Oh, I didn't say I was giving her my back. I'm not lacking all my noodle sense. But I'm not holding a grudge neither. Sometimes you just got to let the rattlesnake lay in the sun." – Sundown
"Men? You do know I'm standing in this little box with you and can hear every word?" – Abigail
"We know. I merely don't care." – Ren ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

By the emphasis on love and good works and all of those wonderful things in school and at home, parents sometimes fail to teach how to recognize the coiled rattlesnake. ~ Melina Sempill Watts

Even when we have realized oneness and nothingness, we still have our personal lives to manage, bodies to take care of, and mouths to feed, and you will know which one is yours and which ones are others', so you won't put food into another person's mouth when you are hungry. Also you won't kiss a rattlesnake or hug a cactus no matter how strong an affinity you feel toward them. But at the same time, we know these apparent separations are functional, not fundamental, and should be recognized as such without mistaking one for the other. I would call this apparent separation "functional ego," or you can call it your "character," which is the collection of your beliefs, habits, and other people's expectations. ~ Ilchi Lee

Everybody knew that you should never provoke a rattlesnake, much less tie it into a bow. But that didn't stop Judd. What did stop him was the rattlesnake. ~ Demetri Martin

People in bars are always claiming to be boxers, hoping thereby to ward off attack, like a black snake will vibrate its tail in leaves and try to impersonate a rattlesnake. ~ William S. Burroughs

Confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred, the clear blue sky from which the plane fell, the routine errand that ended on the shoulder with the car in flames, the swings where the children were playing as usual when the rattlesnake struck from the ivy. ~ Joan Didion

The righteousness of men should be treated with the same respect that one would accord to a rattlesnake. Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.
The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.
The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun. ~ Wislawa Szymborska

Ivy Huxford kept peeking out and giving reports of who was there, and how she never saw so many seats filled in the Palace, and that she didn't think they could squeeze a rattlesnake into the back even if he paid full price, the place was so packed. ~ Karen Hesse

A Man having found a Lion in his path undertook to subdue him by the power of the human eye; and near by was a Rattlesnake engaged in fascinating a small bird. "How are you getting on, brother?" the Man called out to the other reptile, without removing his eyes from those of the Lion. ~ Ambrose Bierce

At my parents' house, I recently found a 1950 black-and-white snapshot of a chubby bespectacled warrior holding a three-and-a-half-foot freshly killed rattlesnake. The boy's smile is ecstatic. ~ Martin E.P. Seligman

Refrigerators are good for keeping homemade moonshine less gross. Freezers are good for keeping rattlesnakes less angry. Garages are good to hide in when your wife finds either. ~ Jenny Lawson