Seagull Quotes

Sometimes I get so lost in the moment, I start running around my yard, flapping my arms like a seagull at the beach. A lot of times I'll even start to squawk. Usually right around the third or fourth squawk is when my neighbor starts screaming at me to pipe down. He's always like, "Quiet down, lady! And put on some pants!" And I'm always like, "YOU put on some pants, sir!" because in the heat of the moment I panic and I can't think of anything better to say. Of course, he's already wearing pants, so it doesn't pack quite the punch I want it to, but the bottom line is he's clearly not as connected to nature as I am. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short, and with those gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed. ~ Richard Bach

If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general's fault. It would be mine. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

As I watched the seagulls, I thought, That's the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Tell you something," the raven said. "I was flying over the Midwest once." He stopped abruptly, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and began again. "I was flying over the Midwest. Iowa or Illinois, or some place like that. And I saw this big damn seagull. Right in the middle of Iowa, a seagull. And he was flying around in big, wide circles, real sweeping circles, the way a seagull flies, flapping his wings just enough to keep on the updrafts. Every time he saw water he'd go flying down toward it, yelling, "I found it! I found it!" The poor sonofabitch was looking for the ocean. And every time he saw water, he thought that was the ocean. He didn't know anything about ponds or lakes or anything. All the water he ever saw was the ocean. He thought that was all the water there was. ~ Peter S. Beagle

The thinnest I've ever been was after I had my appendix out, during the London run of The Seagull. I went down to 112 pounds and realized my brain doesn't work when I'm that thin, so I can't do my job. That's why, when I came out here, I never had that whole Hollywood pressure thing. ~ Carey Mulligan

The Hopi Indians of Arizona believe that our daily rituals and prayers literally keep this world spinning on its axis. For me, feeding the seagulls is one of those everyday prayers. ~ Brenda Peterson

To begin with, you've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself. ~ Richard Bach

We can reach untainted experiential freedom, by living in the moment as it is - without contemplation. Here we find the possibility of freedom - of just being - living as our authentic self. We are our true nature. We are one and whole. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Gull Fletcher," they asked, "did the Magnificent Jonathan say, 'We are in truth the ideas of the Great Gull . . .' or was it, 'We are in fact the ideas of the Great Gull . . .'?" "Please. Call me Fletcher. Just Fletcher Seagull," he would reply, appalled that they would use a term of reverence upon him. "And what difference does it make, which word he used? Both are correct, we are ideas of the Great Gull . . ." But ~ Richard Bach

Remember the band, Flock of Seagulls? They had their van stolen. I was like, They still have a van? ~ Craig Ferguson

The Nike swoop, the three Adidas stripes, the little Polo player on a horse, the Hollister seagull, the symbols of Philadelphia's professional sports teams, even our high school mascot that you athletes wear to battle other schools - some of you wear our Mustang to class even when there is no sporting event scheduled. These are your symbols, what you wear to prove that your identity matches the identity of others. Much like the Nazis had their swastika. ~ Matthew Quick

He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all ~ Richard Bach

You can't understand it until you experience the simple joy of the first time your son points at a seagull and says 'Duck!' ~ Russell Crowe

I played Nina in 'The Seagull,' and I remember thinking it's incredible to see all the actresses in the past that've played her. It's quite strengthening. You feel a part of the family of actresses going through and giving something of themselves to the role. ~ Lily James

If you see birds flying high in the sky, it means clear weather. However, if you see a lot of birds roosting on power lines and trees, this either means they're conspiring against you or falling air pressure and bad weather are on the way. Expect rain and/or a killer seagull attack in the next twelve hours. ~ Brett McKay

Remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created this mess you got yourself into in the first place. ~ Richard Bach

Filled with a reverent notion (for which he would have been put to death on any of the public squares of Christendom or the lands of Mohammed), he reflected that the most adequate symbols of a conjectural Supreme Good are those very ones which are held, absurdly, to be the most idolatrous: the fiery globe above is the only God visible for us creatures, who would perish without it. Likewise, the most real of angels was this seagull, which possessed what Seraphim and Thrones did not have, the clear evidence of existing.

In this world unburdened by concepts, even ferocity was pure: the fish wriggling beneath the wave would soon be only a choice morsel, bleeding under the beak of the bird fishing here, but the bird was giving no false pretext for its hunger. Both fox and hare (trickery and fear) inhabited the dune where he slept, but the killer did not evoke laws promulgated long ago by some wise fox, or handed down by a fox-god. The victim did not suppose itself punished for its crimes or, when dying, protest to the end that it had remained loyal to its prince. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar

# The Star of Seagull
Once again I looked up to the outreach, the Seagull screeching along the blue line of the sky ,wondering no matter how devouring the beauty of a sky is , that is not enough for it . It's more than a call, that it can't be departed from the engulfing sea.The power of taking everything in and still looks so serene is a magnificent made .The star of the Seagull is now shining in the sea brighter and brighter up to the coast line and I can see Indeed the sea is waving a mystical muse at my solitary soul . Once again I hibernate within my restless rendezvous !! ~ Madhushree Das

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. ~ Eric Cantona

The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offshore Lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind. ~ M. L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

I did The Seagull, the Chekhov play, on Broadway, a couple of years ago, and I had done it in London, and I became completely obsessed with the character, Nina, that I played in that. She's an actress. I couldn't find a play after that, that I wanted to do, because I couldn't think of doing anything else. Every part is a disappointment, once you've done that part. ~ Carey Mulligan

When you are alone, bless the solitude; when you are with someone, bless the togetherness! Think of the seagull: It flies alone happily; it flies with another happily too! Solitude is a food; togetherness is a food; man needs both and he must be happy with both! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, dead at 53. Over Barcelona today, the famed reindeer was hit by a flock of seagulls and a 747. Eyewitnesses report, that the reindeer in Spain was hit mainly by the plane. ~ Colin Mochrie

That's why love stories don't have endings! They don't have endings because love doesn't end. ~ Richard Bach

I was very lucky. I left college, and Richard Eyre was in charge of the National Theatre. I was offered the lead in 'The Seagull' with no experience and went on to do five plays there. ~ Helen McCrory

That is the Wasp, yes. But it was captured by Black Stache, and he's coming for this ship now."
"And how do you know that?" asked Slank. "Did a seagull tell you?" This brought chuckles from the crew.
Something like that, thought Peter. ~ Dave Barry

The index finger was never found. Hodges thought that a seagull – one of the big boys that patrolled the lakeshore – might have seized it and carried it away. He preferred that idea to the grisly alternative: that an unhurt City Centre survivor had taken it as a souvenir. ~ Stephen King

Outside the basement door was a covered pen that housed a rooster and a seagull. The rooster had been on his way to Colonel Sanders' when he fell off a truck and broke a drumstick. Someone called Carol, as people often do, and she took the rooster into her care. He was hard of moving, but she had hopes for him. He was so new there he did not even have a name. The seagull, on the other hand, had been with her for years. He had one wing. She had picked him up on a beach three hundred miles away. His name was Garbage Belly. --John McPhee, Travels in Georgia (1973) ~ David Remnick

NINA
Think of me sometimes.
TRIGORIN
I shall never forget you. I shall always remember you as I saw you that bright day
do you recall it?
a week ago, when you wore your light dress, and we talked together, and the white seagull lay on the bench beside us. ~ Anton Chekhov

Did you feel that?" he asked, concern crossing his face. "Yeah, I felt it. You too?" I answered, flirting back. "No, I mean, yes, obviously I felt that, but didn't you feel that hit your head?" he asked, beginning to grin broadly. "What are you talking about?" I asked, raising my hand up to my hair. "Oh, Jesus, Grace, a seagull just shit on your head," he stated, beginning to shake. "What? ~ Alice Clayton

You don't love hatred and evil, of course. You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and to help them see it in themselves. That's what I mean by love. ~ Richard Bach

If you love someone, set them free. If they don't come back, text them when you're drunk. ~ Brooke Bida

The White House usually followed the seagull theory of management: fly in, squawk and flap and shit, and fly away. ~ John Frohnmayer

One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily, and loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight, and people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted, unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers, unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea, and work will be simple and swift as a seagull flying, and play will be casual and quiet as a seagull settling, and the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder or care or notice, and people will smile without reason, even in winter, even in the rain. ~ A.S.J. Tessimond

Seagull owner?" "Flies in, shits on everything, and then leaves. ~ Ernie Lindsey

Just read The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business. Oh my, what currents run deep! Beautifully seen, beautifully told. Praise praise praise ... Pardon my French, but you are one darn major American writer!
Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, on Sandcastle and Other Stories ~ Richard Bach

Jake, I don't want to be a bug. I've been a gorilla, an osprey, a dolphin, a seagull, a trout, of all things, a lobster... and I'm probably forgetting a few. Gorilla was fun. Dolphin was fun. Osprey was fun. Ant? Not fun. Basically, bugs are a bad idea."

Jake shrugged. "I was a flea. That was no big thing.

...

"Jake? Do you ever listen to yourself?"

-Animorphs #5, The Predator page 36 ~ K.A. Applegate

A seagull was flying over a beach, when it saw a mouse. It flew down and asked the mouse: "Where are your wings?" Each animal speaks its own language, and so the mouse didn't under stand the question, but stared at the two strange, large things attached to the other creature's body. "It must have some illness," thought the mouse. The seagull noticed the mouse staring at its wings and thought: "Poor thing. It must have been attacked by monsters that left it deaf and took away its wings." Feeling sorry for the mouse, the seagull picked it up in its beak and took it for a ride in the skies. "It's probably homesick," the seagull thought while they were flying. Then, very carefully, it deposited the mouse once more on the ground. For some months afterward, the mouse was sunk in gloom; it had known the heights and seen a vast and beautiful world. However, in time, it grew accustomed to being just a mouse again and came to believe that the miracle that had occurred in its life was nothing but a dream. ~ Paulo Coelho

When negative experiences such as having one's house shot at occur in my dad's life he tends to come alive. His confusion lifts. Pieces of life's puzzle fuse into meaning like the continents before that colossal rift. It's entirely logical to him that his house has been shot at and when he's able to spend a minute or two in a world that makes sense he appears almost happy. And when he gets happy he does decisive things like this time he went over to the bulletin board in the kitchen and took down the city bus schedule that we've had up there since Tash left and before the bus depot itself closed down. He put it in the garbage can under the sink. Phew. Done. Goodbye past.


But then I imagined him on a day when shitty things weren't happening and he'd be feeling his usual mystified self and go to the dump and there he would see that little piece of paper with the schedule on it and it would bring him to his knees. Just destroy him for a minute or two and he'd probably pick it up and wipe whatever seagull crap there was on it and straighten it out with the side of his hand and bring it back to the kitchen bulletin board and ARRANGE it on there so you'd know it was the centerpiece of his life. ~ Miriam Toews

You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that's all. ~ Bernard Moitessier

Idea for a short story. The shore of a lake, a young girl who's spent her whole life beside it, a girl like you She loves the lake the way a seagull does, and she's happy and free as a seagull. Then a man comes along, sees her, and ruins her life because he has nothing better to do. Destroys her like this seagull here. ~ Anton Chekhov

When my toes are sunk into warm sand and the ocean is lapping my feet, when I breathe in the scent of salt and hear the cry of a seagull, I know that I am returned to a place of restoration. I am home.I can heal here. ~ Toni Sorenson

New Rule: Oil companies must stop with the advertisements implying they're friends of the environment. "At Exxon Mobil, we care about a thriving wildlife." Please
the only thing an oil executive has in common with a seagull is they'd both steal french fries from a baby. ~ Bill Maher

Science is a seagull, it knows the sky; it is a squirrel, it knows the forest; it is a mole, it knows the underground; it is a dolphin, it knows the ocean! Science is a multi-talented creature! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I do rather like birds,' Abdullah Unul says. 'They're busy, active little things. They make do. Have you ever thought, if Istanbul were to have an official bird, what would it be? I bet you'd think stork straight away. Maybe a sparrow. Me, the official bird of Istanbul would have to be the seagull. What do you see dancing around the Ramazan lights, what' s following the ships up and down the Bosphorus, what's facing into the wind on the rocks down by the water side. The common or garden gull, that's what. For all those reasons, the seagull for me is Istanbul, but mostly because it practises kleptoparasitism. You may not have heard of that. I'll explain. It's a behaviour when one animal takes prey from another that has the job of catching or killing it. In seagulls it's letting some other bird do all the hard work of catching the fish or a bit of bread and then taking it off them as they're about to eat it. It's the reason they're the success they are. So, I'll have that Koran. Both parts. To be honest, I'd prefer cash, but I imagine there's a market for that gadgetry you have out there in Fenerbahçe. ~ Ian McDonald

A seagull manager is one who periodically flies into the area, makes a lot of noise, dumps on the people, maybe eats their lunch, and flies away. ~ James Hunter

With that, Tommy went off to do his seagull thing elsewhere on set - making a lot of irritating noise while simultaneously shitting on everyone. ~ Greg Sestero

I did a film called 'Days and Nights,' which is a modern-day retelling of and inspired by Chekhov's 'The Seagull.' ~ Juliet Rylance

We are surely doomed to hover continually upon the brink of Eternity, without taking the final plunge into the abyss. From billows a thousand times more stupendous than any I have ever seen, we glide away with the facility of the arrowy seagull; and the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the deep, but like demons confined to simple threats and forbidden to destroy. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Sir Guy Campbell's classic account of the formation of the links, beginning with Genesis and moving step by step to the thrilling arrival of 'tilth' on the fingers of coastal land, suggests that such notable features of our planet as dinosaurs, the prairies, the Himalayas, the seagull, the female of the species herself, were accidental by-products of the Almighty's preoccupation with the creation of the Old Course at St. Andrews. ~ Alistair Cooke

Nonna tucked each of her hands into the opposite sleeve, a wizened Confucius in a leopard bathrobe. "Michelangleo, he goes. For days and days he stays away from Elisabetta. The other girls, the prettier girls, have hope again. And then, there he goes once more, carrying only his nonno's ugly old glass-his telescope-and a bag of figs. These he lays at her feet.
"'I see you,' he tells her. 'Every day for months, I watch. I see you. Where you sit, the sea is calm and dolphins swim near you. I see your mended net looks like a lady's lace. I see you dance in the rain before you run home. I see the jewel mosaic you leave to be scattered and remade again and again, piu bella than gold and pearls. You are piu bella than any other, queen of the sea.
"'You do not need silk or pearls. I see that. But they are yours if you wish. I am yours if you wish.If you like what you see.' He gives her the glass. She takes it. Then she asks, 'What about the figs? My bisnonno, he laughs. 'It might take time, your looking to see if you like me. I bring lunch.'" Nonna slapped her knee again, clearly delighted with little Michelangelo's humor. "There is the love story. You like it?"
I swallowed another yawn. "Si, Nonna.It's a good story." I couldn't resist. "But...a talking seagull? A dolphin guide? That kinda stretches the truth, dontcha think?"
Nonna shrugged. "All truth, not all truth, does it matter? My nonno Guillermo came to Michelangelo and Elisabetta, then my papa Euplio to h ~ Melissa Jensen

A seagull flying beautifully is heaven; a seagull hunting an innocent fish is hell! Existence is heaven and hell, joy and horror! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The problem with politicians getting to know the issues in indigenous townships is that we tend to suffer from what Aboriginal people call the 'seagull syndrome' - we fly in, scratch around and fly out. ~ Tony Abbott

People are like that here. Strangers smile at you on the beach, come up and offer you a shell, for no reason, lightly, and then go by and leave you alone again. Nothing is demanded of you in payment, no social rite expected, no tie established. It was a gift, freely offered, freely taken, in mutual trust. People smile at you here, like children, sure that you will not rebuff them, that you will smile back. And you do, because you know it will involve nothing. The smile, the act, the relationship is hung in space, in the immediacy and purity of the present; suspended on the still point of here and now; balanced there, on a shaft of air, like a seagull.

The pure relationship, how beautiful it is! How easily it is damaged, or weighed down with irrelevancies - not even irrelevancies, just life itself, the accumulations of life and of time. For the first part of every relationship is pure, whether it be with friend or lover, husband or child. It is pure, simple and unencumbered. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

How those fires burned that are no longer, how the weather worsened, how the shadow of the seagull vanished without a trace. Was it the end of a season, the end of a life? Was it so long ago it seems it might never have been? What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs for the past? (from "No Words Can Describe It") ~ Mark Strand

A moment later Jonathan's body wavered in the air, shimmering, and began to go transparent. Don't let them spread silly rumors about me, or make me a god. O.K., Fletch? I'm a seagull. I like to fly, maybe ... ~ Richard Bach

In my dream I was a seal, and I made love to a seagull. Then I got eaten by a shark, because that's just the way life is. Some fish gets jealous over a bird, and decides to chomp down on his competition. It happens all the time in the real world. ~ Jarod Kintz

Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is absolutely no power in intention. The seagull may intend to fly away, may decide to do so, may talk with the other seagulls about how wonderful it is to fly, but until the seagull flaps his wings and takes to the air, he is still on the dock. There's no difference between that gull and all the others. Likewise, there is no difference in the person who intends to do things differently and the one who never thinks about it in the first place. Have you ever considered how often we judge ourselves by our intentions while we judge others by their actions? Yet intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you. ~ Andy Andrews

I used to think Cape Wind was a great idea. That was when Ted Kennedy was alive and railing about how he might spill his Chivas if he had to keep maneuvering the Mya around all those noisy seagull-murdering wind turbines. Anything Ted Kennedy was against, I was for. ~ Howie Carr

I may never fly - in the bird sort of way. But I do have wings. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

In my last year of drama school, I was Abigail in 'The Crucible' and Nina in 'The Seagull,' and I did some Shakespeare with the RSC. That's what casting directors saw me in, and I got put up for a lot of period drama auditions. I always get told I suit the costumes. I don't think I have a very modern-looking face. ~ Kimberley Nixon

I played Jonathan Livingston Seagull in a musical version of 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' in Austin, TX. It was pretty special. ~ Lauren Worsham

You're never given a dream without the power to make it true. ~ Richard Bach

Must be nice to be a seagull. You eat, you sleep, you shag, and if you're having a bad day you can shite on everyone from a great height. Doesn't even have to be a bad day, you can do it just for fun. ~ Stuart MacBride

Seagulls ... slim yachts of the element. ~ Robinson Jeffers

To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived. ~ Lauren Bacall

I've always said I prefer theater, but there's only ever been one play that I really loved doing, and that was The Seagull. ~ Carey Mulligan

Seagulls dove among corpses and survivors alike. Turner later told his son, Norman, that he found himself fending off attacks by the birds, which swooped from the sky and pecked at the eyes of floating corpses. Rescuers later reported that wherever they saw spirals of gulls, they knew they would find bodies. Turner's experience left him with such a deep hatred of seagulls, according to Norman, that until his retirement he used to carry a .22 rifle and shoot every seagull he could. ~ Erik Larson

P.S."

I close my eyes and see
a seagull in the desert,
high, against unbearably blue sky.

There is hope in the past.

I'm writing to you
all the time, I am writing

with both hands,
day and night. ~ Franz Wright

'There's a seagull eating our food,' he told me, and it was the most romantic thing I'd ever heard. ~ T.J. Klune

Poem in October"

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could ~ Dylan Thomas

The legends lie cradled in the seagulls call, and the promise they made are ground beneath the sadist's fall. ~ Jethro Tull

I'm making a list of when it's acceptable for a pirate to cry. […] So far I've got: one - when holding a seagull covered in oil. Two - when singing a shanty that reminds him of orphans. Three - when confronted with the unremitting loneliness of the human condition. Four - chops. I've just written the word 'chops'. Not really sure where I was going with that one. Any ideas? ~ Gideon Defoe