“One does not care for the cage when the bird has flown away from it. and when the bird of life flies away, no one cares for the body left behind.”

“What is this thing called the existence? Is it all the things that we perceive it to be? Or is it something else? It's a gift. One of my favorite examples is the bird in the cage. You may think that you own the bird inside the cage, but you're wrong. You only own the cage. People think that they need to have a very fancy cage, that the more incredible the cage, the more incredible the bird will look. But the cage and the bird are really two different things. When the bird is gone, all that will be left is the cage.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

“I can levitate birds. No one cares.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“I can levitate birds. No one cares.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for the bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

“Those you love will not drown or burn. They will fly away.'…'Now we both have people we love who are like birds. They have flown far from anything in this world that can hurt them. They're flying away still.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

“Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

“A speckled bird, humbly inspired,
Ran across the road when it could have flown,
And it made me smile.”

Aaron Weiss

“The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

“My life flies away like a dream:
Why should I stay behind?”

Julia Golding (1969) British fiction writer