Starling Quotes

The trouble is, it's not just starlings that humans tend to regard as pests. It's all wildlife. Animals are fine as long as they stay in their own habitats. Yet we have a long history of expanding our territories with little thought for anything but our own needs. Quite routinely, we turn wildlife habitats into human habitats. And, of course, man has long had difficulty with the idea of sharing the ecosystem with any other living creature. When animals won't cooperate with our desires, they are regarded as pests, nuisances, to be disposed of summarily. The starling is one of many such animals, for he sometimes interferes with our convenience simply by being. ~ Margarete Sigl Corbo & Diane Marie Barras

It was as though committing murders had purged him of lesser rudeness. Or perhaps, Starling thought, it excited him to see her marked in this particular way. She couldn't tell. The sparks in his eyes flew into his darkness like fireflies down a cave. ~ Thomas Harris

Toby liked to say he chose not to be impulsive. As if being impulsive were something you consciously decide. When I look at Starling, with her turquoise turban and wet knot of hair, and at Rowan, with his stack of cheap string anklets, I think: Impulsive isn't something you choose. It's something you are. Like gay, or freckled or bipolar. Something I pretend to be but am not. Not really. Not deep down. ~ Kirsten Hubbard

Will interrupted. "Henry," he said, "you're on fire. You do know that, don't you?"
"Oh, yeas," Henry said eagerly. The flames were now nearly to his shoulder. "I've been working like a man possessed all day. Charlotte, did you hear what I said about the Sensor?"
Charlotte dropped her hand from her mouth. "Henry!" she shrieked. "Your arm!"
Henry glanced down at his arm, and his mouth dropped open. "Bloody hell!" was all he had time to say before Will, exhibiting a starling presence of mind, stood up, seized the vase of flowers off the table, and hurled the contents over Henry. ~ Cassandra Clare

In physiology, as in all other sciences, no discovery is useless, no curiosity misplaced or too ambitious, and we may be certain that every advance achieved in the quest of pure knowledge will sooner or later play its part in the service of man. ~ Ernest Starling

I'll fight Lloyd Honeyghan for nothing if the price is right. ~ Marlon Starling

Meanwhile in the valley, Alice was having a confusing conversation with a starling. ~ Steve Merrick

Sometimes Crawford's tone reminded Starling of the know-it-all caterpillar in Lewis Caroll. ~ Thomas Harris

Global warming doesn't care what's in your bank account.
-Sinead Starling ~ Gordon Korman

Why look'e, young gentleman," said Toby, "when a man keeps himself so very ex-clusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over his head with nobody a-prying and smelling about it, it's rather a starling thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman (however respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with at conweniency) circumstanced as you are. ~ Charles Dickens

He was working that charm right now on the trainer who kneeled before him and touched his thigh as though it were the thigh of David, Michelangelo's glorious statue come to life right here on court. ~ A.G. Starling

Starling discovered that she had traded feeling frightened for feeling cheap. Of the two, she preferred feeling frightened. ~ Thomas Harris

Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!
Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.
Down along under the Hill, shining in the sunlight,
Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,
There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,
Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.
Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing
Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?
Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! and merry-o,
Goldberry, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o!
Poor old Willow-man, you tuck your roots away!
Tom's in a hurry now. Evening will follow day.
Tom'sgoing hom again water lilies-bringing.
Hey! Come derry dol! Can you hear me singing? ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

In New York, the European starling - now a ubiquitous avian pest from Alaska to Mexico - was introduced because someone thought the city would be more cultured if Central Park were home to each bird mentioned in Shakespeare. ~ Alan Weisman

It occured to Starling how much Roden would benefit from an elbow smash in the hinge of his jaw. ~ Thomas Harris

Starling knew what the malicious Dr. Lecter would say, and it was true: she was afraid there was something tacky that Senator Martin saw in her, something cheap, something thief-like that Senator Martin reacted to. That Vanderbilt bitch.
Dr. Lecter would relish pointing out that class resentment, the buried anger that comes with mother's milk, was a factor too. Starling gave away nothing to any Martin in education, intelligence, drive, and certainly physical appearance, but still it was there and she knew it. ~ Thomas Harris

She stands behind the reception desk, dwarfed and age speckled as a winter starling, perhaps ninety years old, and chattering, chattering away, as if a cure for his inability to speak Japanese were the application of more Japanese (a hair-of-the-dog sensibility). And yet some how, from his months of travel and pantomime, his pathetic journey into empathic and telepathic, he feels he does understand. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

You appear to me not to have understood the nature of my body & mind. Partly from ill-health, & partly from an unhealthy & reverie-like vividness of Thoughts, & (pardon the pedantry of the phrase) a diminished Impressibility from Things, my ideas, wishes, & feelings are to a diseased degree disconnected from motion & action. In plain and natural English, I am a dreaming & therefore an indolent man. I am a Starling self-incaged, & always in the Moult, & my whole Note is, Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I thank God for what happened," Verger said. "It was my salvation. Have you accepted Jesus, Miss Starling? Do you have faith? ~ Thomas Harris

Sei la luce della mia vita." (You are the light of my life) he whispered softly. Declan steadied his partner. He was getting pretty damn good at Italian, "La mia luce brilla solo per te." (My light shines only for you.) ~ Isobel Starling

Dr. Lecter, erect as a dancer and carrying Starling in his arms, came out from behind the gate, walked barefoot out of the barn, through the pigs. Dr. Lecter walked through the sea of tossing backs and bloodspray in the barn. ~ Thomas Harris

The pudgy one moved his bishop and immediately turned the beetle around and started it trudging back the other way. "If the beetle just cuts across the corner, is time up then?" Starling asked. "Of course time's up then," the pudgy one said loudly, without looking up. "Of course it's up then. How do you play? Do you make him cross the whole board? Who do you play against, a sloth? ~ Thomas Harris

This is the hardest time, Starling. Use this time and it will temper you. Now's the hardest test - not letting rage and frustration keep you from thinking. It's the core of whether you can command or not. Waste and stupidity will get you the worst. ~ Thomas Harris

Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation out of the mines Officer Starling. ~ Thomas Harris

His eyes were warm as he gazed at me. "I would do anything for you, don't ever forget that." Emil moved closer, gently tucking the rose behind my ear. The floral scent perfumed every breath I took as Emil brushed his thumb lightly over my lips. "Evie, I lost you once, I won't
lose you again. Even if it takes a thousand years to earn your trust and win you back, I'll do it. You're the only person in my life who matters.
You're the only person who ever has. I love you. Emil ~ Angela Corbett

I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out." - I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further attention.
In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. - "I can't get out - I can't get out," said the starling.
I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. - "I can't get out," said the starling. - God help thee! said I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turn'd about the cage to get to the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. - I took both hands to it.
The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, press'd his breast against it, as if impatient. - I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty. - "No," said the starling - "I can't get out - I can't get out," said the starling. ~ Laurence Sterne

Now that Dad was gone I was starting to see how mortality was bound up in things like that cold, arc-lit sky. How the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again. The albums on my mother's shelves are full of family photographs. But also other things. A starling with a crooked beak. A day of hoarfrost and smoke. A cherry tree thick with blossom. Thunderclouds, lightning strikes, comets and eclipses: celestial events terrifying in their blind distances but reassuring you, too, that the world is for ever, though you are only a blink in its course. ~ Helen Macdonald

This is the Death's-head Moth," he said. "That's nightshade she's sitting on - we're hoping she'll lay." The moth was wonderful and terrible to see, its large brown-black wings tented like a cloak, and on its wide furry back, the signature device that has struck fear in men for as long as men have come upon it suddenly in their happy gardens. The domed skull, a skull that is both skull and face, watching from its dark eyes, the cheekbones, the zygomatic arch traced exquisitely beside the eyes. "Acherontia styx," Pilcher said. "It's named for two rivers in Hell. Your man, he drops the bodies in a river every time - did I read that?" "Yes," Starling said. "Is it rare?" "In this part of the world it is. There aren't any at all in nature. ~ Thomas Harris

MARIA: But unluckily that iron gate, that Ha, Ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. I cannot get out, as the starling said.
HENRY: And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited. ~ Jane Austen

The law of the heart is thus the same as the law of muscular tissue generally, that the energy of contraction, however measured, is a function of the length of the muscle fibre. ~ Ernest Starling

Ode, Elegy, Aubade, Pslam"

1
The songbird that escapes
from a burning house
will build its nest
in the shape of a cage.

2
This is one thing
we know: song begs
for the places that make it
grow from seed to starling,

3
places that put the heart's hemlock
in an empty rowboat
and heave it from the shore.

4
We only praise what we cannot
keep: violin strings berried with rain,
teacups overflowing with brandywine,
radios sickened with static.

5
Glass tossed out with the tide
will come back smoother and stranger,
but never to the same person.

6
This is something we want
to know. The woman in love
never touches her ears.

7
The man in his house is always lost
without her.

8
Morning pulls light
from the dark like a boy
hoisting a trout from the lake
by its clean, pink gills.

9
When the woman escapes
from a burning house
she will know the path of the wind,

10
how it writes its scripture
in peach blossoms blown
into a baby's empty pram.

11
She'll feel it compose its words
against her body, against the night,
against the water, in an endless, artless psalm. ~ Ryan Teitman

Ruffian magpies and crows squabbled shrilly in the swaying tree by my window. Then, unbeknownst to me, a tiny starling with its astral plumage came closer still and made its resonant point with greater subtlety. ~ Stewart Stafford

Sometimes, the way you think about a person isn't the way they actually are. People are different when you can smell them and see them up close. - Ben Starling ~ John Green

WHEN STARLING was a child she moved from a clapboard house that groaned in the wind to the solid redbrick of the Lutheran Orphanage. ~ Thomas Harris

After a night of drinking, she would be a pale, starling-sized creature, but now, in this place, she is moonlight in heels. ~ Claire North

Why do I write love stories? Because nothing else matters... ~ Ben Starling

Starling lowered her voice, but it carried anyway. "He is FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry the Abdicated. And you are the Fool."
"Once, perhaps, I was the Fool. It is common knowledge here in Jhaampe. But now I am the Toymaker. As I no longer use the other title, you may take it for yourself if you wish. As for Tom, I believe he takes the title Bed Bolster these days."
"I will be seeing the Queen about this."
"A wise decision. If you wish to become her Fool, she is certainly the one you must see. But for now, let me show you something else. No, step back, please, so you can see it all. Here it comes." I heard the slam and the latch. "The outside of my door," the Fool announced gladly. "I painted it myself. Do you like it? ~ Robin Hobb

I know who I am when I'm wi' Sam. When I wake up in his arms, I'm so at peace I don't wantae get out of bed. He makes me laugh until I cry, he always cares for me, no matter that I'm a maudlin, moody control freak. I look at him, and fer the first time in my life, I'm home - Declan Ramsay (Illuminate the Shadows- Shatterproof Bond #1) ~ Isobel Starling

For me ... " the words seemed difficult for Alex to find, "getting to stay with you, to spend more time with you ... to love you the way
you should be loved, it's all I live for. ~ Angela Corbett

The world follows its own course. Each possesses his own thoughts, each treads his own path. So it is with your mother, and so it is with your starling. As it is with everyone. The world follows its own course. ~ Haruki Murakami

Mozart's pet starling once revised a phrase he wrote. The bird sang it after he played it on the piano, but changed all the sharps to flats. Mozart described it happening in the margin of the score. 'That was beautiful!' he wrote. When the bird died, he sang at its funeral, and read a poem to it. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

the monster never ends up with the princess. ~ Isabella Starling

Well, what is she, then? And where did she come from?" cried the Fledgling shrilly, flapping his short wings and staring down at the cradle.
"You tell him, Annabel!" the Starling croaked.
Annabel moved her hands inside her blanket.
"I am earth and air and fire and water," she said softly. "I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning."
"Ah, such dark!" said the Starling softly, bending his head to his breast.
"It was dark in the egg, too," the Fledgling cheeped.
"I come from the sea and its tides," Annabel went on. "I come from the sky and it's stars, I come from the sun and it's brightness - "
"Ah, so bright!" said the starling, nodding.
"And I come from the forests of earth."
As if in a dream, Mary Poppins rocked the cradle - to-and-fro, to-and-fro with a steady swinging movement.
"Yes?" whispered the Fledgling.
"Slowly I moved at first," said Annabel, "always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly."
She paused for a moment, her blue eyes full of memories.
"And then?" Prompted the Fledgling.
"I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey. ~ P.L. Travers

For you. The reader. Smile.
Be yourself.
Don't try to be someone else, because you are awesome and beautiful just the way you are.
Be yourself, and strive to be the best you can be. Everything will be alright. ~ Maya Starling

Then put in the interior a roasted goose and into its belly a roasted hen and in the belly of the hen a roasted pigeon and in the belly of the pigeon a roasted starling and in the belly of this a small bird, roasted or fried. ~ Candida Martinelli

Hearing from you makes me long for simpler times, but perhaps the attraction of the past is that it is over, and we can make of it what we will. ~ Starling Lawrence

Don't ever say that, Fennrys," she said. "I don't ever want to hear you say that you don't deserve or you aren't worthy. You do. You are. ~ Lesley Livingston

But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps
deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs. ~ Thomas Harris

Starling looked at Crawford steadily, but she was too still. "Hannibal the Cannibal," she said. ~ Thomas Harris

Well, they're going to elect that Superman Hoover, and he's going to have some trouble. He's going to have to spend money, but it won't be enough. Then the Democrats will come in. But they don't know anything about money.
[To his Secret Service man, Edmund Starling] ~ Calvin Coolidge

Now I think of the starling flocks that move across the stripped winter landscape at home; how you'll hear and look up to this great rush of birds, lifting and diving and turning. I think of the ravens, afloat on the air streams. Of the crows, going home at the fade of light, hundreds on hundreds, flowing and flowing, the winter sky filled with their tide.

Dark birds, ruffianly dark birds, stronger than birds of light and better survivors. They are the undervoice, scavenging life, living off gleanings. Uncivilised. Shameless. Outside the law. They allow the return of the soul. ~ Kerry Hardie

Congratulations, starling. You were meant to fly. ~ Fiona Paul

Everything she sang was true. I will leave it to you as to whether the truth can exist with details omitted, or if those lacks make a lie of it. ~ Robin Hobb

She'll need a code name of her own."
Quinn tapped his quill on the table as he read over Mouse's notes for the tenth time. They were like a flock of gabbling birds, these ladies, following the lead of the one in front. "Starling."
Cass nodded as he opened the door. "Starlings are smart birds."
"I know. Annoying as hell, too. ~ Erin Beaty

Lovely," Nellie whispered. "A double-crosser wouldn't spend all this time gardening and planting flowers, would they?"
...
Sinead Starling opened the door.
"Ah," Nellie said. "I guess I was wrong. ~ Jude Watson

Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. ~ Thomas Harris

Alright," she said. "But what is your relationship?" A silence fell upon the room until Miles grunted as if waking up from a slumber. "Mine," he growled. "She's mine. ~ Isabella Starling

When Ben unfurls the T-shirts, there are two small problems. First, it turns out that a large T-shirt in a Georgia gas station is not the same size as a large T-shirt at, say, Old Navy. The gas station shirt is gigantic-more garbage bag than shirt. It is smaller than the graduation robes, but not by much. But this problem pales in comparison to the other problem, which is that both T-shirts are embossed with huge Confederate flags. Printed over the flag are the words HERITAGE NOT HATE.
"Oh no you didn't," Radar says when I show him why we're laughing. "Ben Starling, you better not have bought your token black friend a racist shirt."
"I just grabbed the first shirts I saw, bro."
"Don't bro me right now," Radar says, but he's shaking his head and laughing. I hand him his shirt and he wiggles into it while driving with his knees. "I hope I get pulled over," he says. "I'd like to see how the cop responds to a black man wearing a Confederate T-shirt over a black dress. ~ John Green

Who are you anyway?" Krendler said. "You're not Starling. You've got the spot on your face, but you're not Starling. ~ Thomas Harris

Only by following out the injunction of our great predecessor [William Harvey] to search out and study the secrets of Nature by way of experiment, can we hope to attain to a comprehension of 'the wisdom of the body and the understanding of the heart,' and thereby to the mastery of disease and pain, which will enable us to relieve the burden of mankind. ~ Ernest Starling

I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze
I cannot get out, said the starling ~ Vladimir Nabokov

You're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling? ~ Anthony Hopkins

I'll always remember the day Daddy took me on a journey . . . the day history was made with one million men and me. ~ Kelly Starling Lyons