The Hummingbird Quotes

We've all led raucous lives, some of them inside, some of them out. But only the poem you leave behind is what's important. Everyone knows this. The voyage into the interior is all that matters, Whatever your ride. Sometimes I can't sit still for all the asininities I read. Give me the hummingbird, who has to eat sixty times His own weight a day just to stay alive. Now that's a life on the edge. ~ Charles Wright

[Footnote:] Much still remains to be learned about his sex life because the Hummingbird is quicker than the eye. ~ Will Cuppy

It was the end for me. And yet not an end. In all the years which have since elapsed she remains the woman I loved and lost, the unattainable one [ ... ] I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.
- Henry Miller, Stand Still like the Hummingbird (1962) ~ Henry Miller

Gentle day's flower - The hummingbird competes With the stillness of the air. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

There is a story of a hummingbird who lives in a beautiful forest. One day that forest goes up in flames. All the animals watch on in dismay as flames destroy their home. Only the tiny hummingbird tries to stop the fire. Backwards and forwards he flies, with drop after drop of precious water. Feeling helpless, the elephant with his big trunk and the giraffe with his long neck watch the flames in dismay. They stand and do nothing. The hummingbird continues in vain and the animals start to laugh. They laugh at how small he is and how hard he is trying to save the forest that he loves. "What are you doing?" they ask him, "You can't save the forest." He stops, just for a second, to look at all the hopeless animals. He knows that he cannot save the forest but it doesn't matter. "I'm doing the best that I can," he says. ~ Anonymous

When you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous. ~ Henry Miller

Cinder crossed her arms over her chest. "You're an expert on the sound levels of spaceships now, are you?"
"Nah," said Kai. "I've just been waiting to hear that sound all day."
She smiled at him, feeling the hummingbird flutter of her own pulse. He smiled back.
"Aces," said Thorne with a low groan. "They haven't even kissed yet and they're already making me nauseous. ~ Marissa Meyer

Don't you get it yet,Harriet?" Nick says in total exasperation. "i like that you know about the stars in the rain and the shapes of the clouds and the heartbeat rate of the hummingbird. I like that you know that giraffes don't have vocal cords and the sharks can't stop moving. I like the way you stick your little nose in the air ... ~ Holly Smale

As for life,
I'm humbled,
I'm without words
sufficient to say

how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,
both of these
and over and over,

and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched

though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen –
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness.

Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort –
along with human love,

dog love, water love, little-serpent love,
sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.
There is hardly time to think about

stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when
time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,

and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.
As for death,
I can't wait to be the hummingbird,
can you? ~ Mary Oliver

A flash of harmless lightning,
A mist of rainbow dyes.
The burnished sunbeams brightening
From flower to flower he flies;
While wakes the nodding blossom
But just too late to see
What lip hath touched her bosom
And drained her rosary. ~ John B. Tabb

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
He is wiser than that, I think. ~ Mary Oliver

But it left something with him; as long as the hummingbird had not abandoned the land, somewhere there were still flowers, and they could all go on. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko

Most elegantly finished in all parts, [the hummingbird] is a miniature work of our Great Parent, who seems to have formed it the smallest, and at the same time the most beautiful of the winged species. ~ J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur

Either you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. ~ Henry Miller

One extraordinary thing happened as a result of the fear caused by your people, and that was that old feuds and envies disappeared. Those among us who had been enemies for generations forgot their grudges and joined one another against the invasion. ~ Graciela Limon

Like calls to like. I'd sense it when the Hummingbird entered the Unsea, but I'd been too afraid to embrace it. This time, I didn't fight. I let go of my fear, my guilt, my shame. There was darkness inside me. He had put it there, and I would no longer deny it. The volcra, the nichevo'ya, they were my monsters, all of them. And he was my monster too.
"My power is yours", I repeated. His arms tightened around me. "And yours is mine," I whispered against his lips. ~ Leigh Bardugo

My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. ~ Mary Oliver

I told them that was the dulcet roar of a Rampion's engines," said Kai, "but they all insisted it was just another media hover flying over." His hands were tucked into his pickets and he was dressed more casually than Cinder was used to seeing him - a cotton button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms and dark denim jeans. She had never imagined that farm life might suit him, but he looked as comfortable here as he did anywhere.
Cinder crossed her arms over her chest. "You're an expert on the sound levels of spaceships now, are you?"
"Nah," said Kai. "I've just been waiting to hear that sound all day."
She smiled at him, feeling the hummingbird flutter of her own pulse. He smiled back.
"Aces," said Thorne with a low groan. "They haven't even kissed yet and they're already making me nauseous."
His comment was followed by a pained grunt, but Cinder didn't know which of her friends had smacked him. ~ Marissa Meyer

Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird meaning death ~ T. S. Eliot

Furious flutter awakened hummingbird heart hello hello love ~ Megan McCafferty

Time passes too fast.
Like a hummingbird flying by,
it's just a blur to my eyes. ~ Amanda Leigh

Flutter like a hummingbird,
Dive like an eagle,
Ain't no bird that's my equal.
- Twilight ~ Kathryn Lasky

Here is my sacrifice: my hummingbird landing in a stranger's palm. ~ Ada Limon

I Just want people to see me," she said. "I want to walk into a room and have them know I'm there. I just don't want to be invisible anymore."

"I see you, hummingbird ~ J.M. Darhower

Hummingbird girl, running on caffeine and borrowed energy. He's seen what happens when that energy runs out. He never wants to see it again. ~ Seanan McGuire

Paul. She hadn't just watched him die. She had taken in his death like a hummingbird drawing nectar. ~ Karin Slaughter

I swear that child has more energy than a hummingbird on sweet tea. ~ Nancy Naigle

Hope was a hummingbird. Tiny in size and fragile by nature. Beautiful. ~ T.S. Joyce

I live in an apartment. I told you, I'm broke. I couldn't buy spats for a hummingbird. ~ Robert Blake