Quotes about fly (1123 quotes, page 8) | Quotes of famous people

“This thing here, which looks like a wooden club, is actually several pieces of particular wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that the whole thing is sprung, like a dance floor. It's for hitting cricket balls with. If you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you've done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly. What we're trying to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might…travel.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Henry, Act II, scene V
The Real Thing (1982)

Way , Travel , Idea , Dance

“The idea that we can just keep growing forever on a finite planet is totally imbecilic…. Julian Simon, a professor of junkmail marketing, and his kind, think technology will solve everything…. We can use up the Earth then we can just jump into spaceships and fly somewhere else…. Technology does nothing to solve problems of biodiversity or living space or arable cropland…. Fresh water and arable cropland are finite resources…. We are already far beyond what we can support sustainably…. The provincial view you get from someone living in some wealthy American East Coast city is wildly different from reality. Most of the world is tropical, hungry and poor. Visit the developing world and southern hemisphere and you get a very different view of reality.”

Paul R. Ehrlich (1932) American scientist and environmentalist

Paul Ehrlich and the population bomb

World , Idea , Support , Problem

“When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. or wonder who, after all, you are.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 3, "Hort Town" (Ged)

Life , Time , Flying

“To waft a feather or to drown a fly.”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 154.

Flying

“I set to work. I pointed a mural for the main wall: Introduction to the New National Theatre. The other interior walls, the ceiling and the friezes depicted the forerunners of the contemporary actor – a popular musician, a wedding jester, a good woman dancing, a copyist of the Torah, the first poet dreamer, and finally a modern couple flying over the stage. The friezes were decorated with dishes and food, beigels and fruits spread out on well-laid tables. I looked forward to meeting the actors who passed me: 'Let us agree. Let's join forces and throw out all this old rubbish. Let's work a miracle!”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

c. 1921
Quote from 'Chagall in the Yiddish Theater', Avram Kampf, as quoted in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 101
1920's

Food , Wedding , Dance , Flying

“Israel became a nation again in 1948. If the strange verse in Psalm 90:10 regarding the 70 or 80 years before we “fly away” ties in here, that would add up to 2018 or 2028. I’m gonna really keep an eye on Israel and that temple mount!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 102

Flying

“Roads must be used by cars and airplanes must fly in airports.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

16 March, 2016
As President, 2016
Source: La Sexta Noticias http://www.lasexta.com/noticias/nacional/aplastante-logica-rajoy-carreteras-tienen-que-coches-aeropuertos-tienen-que-salir-aviones_2016031600396.html

Cars , Flying

“Where have I been? I've been on my flying saucer tour. Which means like flying saucers I too have been appearing in small southern towns in front of a handful of hillbillies lately…no one doubts my existence.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Sane Man (1989)

Appearance , Flying

“You don’t have to kill an animal because you want to be hot and fly. It’s not the 16th century anymore. We’ve got central heating for God’s sake. And you can get a fake fur coat. I have one. It’s fabulous.”

Taraji P. Henson (1970) American actress

At a party held at Stella McCartney’s Boutique in New York; quoted in "New York Fashion Week: Tim Gunn, Taraji Henson make the case against animal cruelty" http://www.nola.com/fashion/index.ssf/2011/02/new_york_fashion_week_tim_gunn.html, NOLA.com (10 February 2011).

God , Animals , Flying

“The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate [a free inquiry]? The blackest billingsgate, most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

XXXI, p. 517. Also quoted in The Political Writings of John Adams (2001) edited by George W. Carey, p. 440 http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0895262924&id=zwKs6Wf2NUEC&pg=PA440&lpg=PA440&ots=qW8I2vCTNZ&dq=%22solemn+truth+in+collision+with+a+dogma+of+a+sect%22&sig=BrWgHvNRAAWcN0rXxdBa7zjeEcc
1810s, Letters to John Taylor (1814)

Truth , Knowledge , Learning , Reading

“My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.”

Elizabeth I of England On Monsieur's Departure

"On Monsieur's Departure" (February 1582).

Love , Passion , Sun , Flying

“Then they invite her to join the dance and approach the holy rites, and make room for her in their ranks and rejoice to be near her. Just as Idalian birds, cleaving the soft clouds and long since gathered in the sky or in their homes, if a strange bird from some distant region has joined them wing to wing, are at first all filled with amaze and fear; then nearer and nearer they fly, and while yet in the air have made him one of them and hover joyfully around with favouring beat of pinions and lead him to their lofty resting-places.”
Dehinc sociare choros castisque accedere sacris hortantur ceduntque loco et contingere gaudent. qualiter Idaliae volucres, ubi mollia frangunt nubila, iam longum caeloque domoque gregatae, si iunxit pinnas diversoque hospita tractu venit avis, cunctae primum mirantur et horrent; mox propius propiusque volant, atque aere in ipso paulatim fecere suam plausuque secundo circumeunt hilares et ad alta cubilia ducunt.

Statius book Achilleid

Source: Achilleid, Book I, Line 370

Fear , Home , Bird , Distant

“My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high.”

Ruslana Koršunova (1987–2008) fashion model

"Model's Web rants pined for love" in Daily News (29 June 2009)

Dreams , Flying

““A crank, like I say. Won’t let him fly. Says she wants her grandchildren to see the sun. What difference it makes if a plane flies with one seat empty, I don’t know!”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

January “SNOW JOB”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Sun , Flying

“A thousand trills and quivering sounds
In airy circles o'er us fly,
Till, wafted by a gentle breeze,
They faint and languish by degrees,
And at a distance die.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Ode on St. Cecilia's Day (1699), st. 6.

Flying

“In a racially diverse society, it makes sense to phase out state sanction for the battle flag — as South Carolina governor Nikki Haley advocated yesterday, in calling on the state legislature to vote for the removal of the battle flag that has been flying over the grounds of the state capitol…”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, America: One Nation, Indivisible (2015)

Sense , Flying

“Reincarnation is but a part of this probability system, the part that falls within your particular universe. There are also root dreams shared by the race as a whole. Most of these are not as symbolic as Jung thought them to be but are literal interpretations of the abilities used by the inner self. For that matter, as you know, flying dreams need not be symbolic of anything. They can be valid experiences, though often intermixed with other dream elements.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 309-310, quoting from Session 282

Dreams , Universe , Parting , Flying

“Sweet Sometime, fly fast for me.”

Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) American musician, poet

Special Pleading 1875 (Lanier's poem on Time).

Flying

“UNICEF does amazing work. I thought I was a worldly person, and then I started working with them and realized I don’t know as much of my world as I need to. And if I don’t know as much about my world as I need to, then many, many, many people don’t. So I’m thrilled to be in a position to be able to talk about it. And so I’m gonna.
—'FLY (online) magazine, November, 2005 issue”

Clay Aiken (1978) singer-songwriter, actor, record producer

On Charity

People , World , Personality

“When it was assumed that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, it was correspondingly presumed that their flight evolved among climbers that first glided and then developed powered flight. This has the advantage that we know that arboreal animals can evolve powered flight with the aid of gravity, as per bats. When it was realized that birds descended from deinonychosaurs, many researchers switched to the hypothesis that running dinosaurs learned to fly from the ground up. This has the disadvantage that it is not certain whether it is practical for tetrapod flight to evolve among ground runners working against gravity.
The characteristics of birds indicate that they evolved from dinosaurs that had first evolved as bipedal runners, and then evolved into long armed climbers. If the ancestors of birds had been entirely arboreal, then they should be semiquadrupedal forms whose sprawling legs were integrated into the main airfoil, like bats. That birds are bipeds whose erect legs are separate from the wings indicates that their ancestors evolved to run.”

Gregory Scott Paul book The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Gregory S. Paul (2010) The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press, p. 52
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs

Bird , Learning , Animals , Flying

“If the movements of reflection in classical philosophy could be depicted in the structure of Homer's Odysseus, in which a wandering hero returns home via a thousand false paths across the whole world, in order there to be recognized by his woman, that is, by his "soul," then the reflections of modern thinking in no way still find their way back "home." They either move on the spot in essenceless flurries, drained of experience, or they drift on, like the eternal Jew or the Flying Dutchman, without hope of arriving, through the perpetually alien. … For the modern subject, a "vagabond in existence," there is no longer any return home.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 538

World , Hope , Way , Home

“The bird of truth would not be able to fly if it weren't for the air of lies we breathe.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

from E.J. Martin's website at http://morayeel.louisiana.edu/ejMARTIN/ejMARTIN-artist.html

Truth , Bird , Flying

“Every living thing was shunning him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”

J. M. Barrie book The Little White Bird

Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 14

Faith , Bird , Parting , Perfection

“So you go on and on, with this intellectual fly down, your underwear exposed, and toilette paper hanging out the back of your pants.”

Hank Green (1980) American vlogger

about "saying stuff wrong" Stop Embarrassing Yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIvrDsnKuQ8&feature=related
Youtube

Flying

“Hey Uncle Sam
Put your name at the top of his list
And the Statue of Liberty
Started shaking her fist.
And the eagle will fly
Man, it's gonna be hell
When you hear Mother Freedom
Start ringing her bell
And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you
Brought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American).
Song lyrics, Unleashed (2002)

World , Feeling , Hell , Freedom

“He was dancing to some music
No one else had ever heard
He'd speak in unknown languages
She would translate every word
And then when the world was laughing
At his castles in the sky
She'd hold him in her body
Till he once again could fly.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Shooting Star
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

World , Music , Dance , Flying

“Starting with approaching the spot where the painting is to be done, meanwhile realising the emptiness of the mind, up to the method of 'the flying white', of the rule of the singular stroke of the brush.... there is a proper tradition in which the artist is fully aware of the fact that only the pure and empty spontaneity enables him to embrace without hesitating all apparitions and to truly penetrate into the roots of things.”

Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist

Source: undated quotes, Tàpies, Werke auf Papier 1943 – 2003,' (2004), p. 38.

Painting , Flying

“So, a talking parrot, three hundred people flying through the sky in a big tin can called a 747, a human being growing inside another person, and men walking on the moon don't contradict logic?”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Men , People , Personality , Flying

“Willingham, waiting in the batters box, Wagner ready, the 1–0 pitch, swing and fly ball to left, Floyd under it, he's there, put it in the books, The New York Mets have won the 2006 National League Eastern Division Championship and the party is under way.”

Howie Rose (1954) American sports announcer

Calling the 2006 National League East Clincher.
2006

Books , Way , Waiting , Flying

“When discussing a Florida woman denied a drivers license for refusing to remove her Burka and head covering- You know, I think they should give her the license, but then, it should only be good for flying carpets.”

Greg Giraldo (1965–2010) American comedian

Just For Laughs

Thinking , Flying

“I can't let myself fly with my fantasy because it is against my nature.”

Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956) Italian general during both World Wars and a Prime Minister of Italy

Non posso abbandonarmi a voli di fantasia perché ciò è contrario alla mia natura.
Quoted in "Badoglio Risponde‎" - Page 225 - by Vanna Vailati - Italy - 1958

Nature , Flying

“Goin' back to Saturn where the rings all glow,
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow,
On Saturn, people live to be two hundred and five,
Goin' back to Saturn where the people smile,
Don't need cars 'cause we've learned to fly,
On Saturn, just to live to us is our natural high.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Saturn
Song lyrics, Songs In The Key of Life (1976)

People , Smile , Cars , Nature

“Weisinger, a couple of years ago, made up the following story: "Isaac Asimov was asked how Superman could fly faster than the speed of light, which was supposed to be an absolute limit. To this Asimov replied, 'That the speed of light is a limit is a theory; that Superman can travel faster than light is a fact.'"
I assure you it never happened and I never said it, but it will be repeated, I am quite certain, indefinitely, and it will probably be found in Bartlett's quotations a century from now, attributed to me, after all my writings have been forgotten.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"Science Fiction, 1938" Nebula Winners 14 (1980) edited by Frederick J. Pohl, p. 97
General sources

Travel , Light , Speed , Flying

“Not only has Anonymous redefined what it means to be an advocate, Anonymous has reinvigorated advocacy in this country and has sent it flying off to the digital revolution.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As mentioned in the mint press http://www.mintpressnews.com/anonymous-revolutionized-revolt/200200/

Flying , Country

“There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly. Fashion is at once a caterpillar and a butterfly, caterpillar by day, butterfly by night”

Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French fashion designer

Statement in the 1920s as quoted in Chanel (1987) by Jean Leymari

Love , Fashion , Flying , Night

“They are kings and priests unto God. They wear crowns that flash in the everlasting light. They wear robes that are spotlessly white. They wave victorious palms. They sing anthems of such exceeding sweetness as no earthly choirs ever approach. They stand before the throne. They fly on ministries of love. They muse on the top of Mount Zion. They meditate on the banks of the river of life. They are rapturous with ecstasies of love. God wipes away all tears from their eyes.”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 306.

Love , Life , God , Tear

“You can do it! You believe! Feel it in your gizzard. You are a creature of flight. Fly, my children. Fly!”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Grimble; Chapter Twenty-two: "The Shape of the Wind", p. 162
The Capture (2003)

Children , Feeling , Flying

“The New York Times "last month announced that the Syrian-supported Hizbollah resistance in Lebanon had 10,000 missiles that could fly to Tel Aviv and "leave in their wake devastation more terrible than anything Israel has ever known". The missiles are a myth – I travel the roads of southern Lebanon every two weeks and there are no such missiles, as the UN force there will confirm – but this doesn't matter.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Would President Assad invite a cruise missile to his palace? http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles230.htm, 15 April, 2003
2003

Travel , Support , Time , Flying

“When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.”

Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

As quoted in Seven Steps to Starting and Running an Editorial Consulting Business (2002) by Jane M. Frutchey, p. 121

Faith , Light , Time , Flying

“Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we'll meet now and then when we wish, in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

There's No Such Place As Far Away (1978)

Birthday , For Wife , Birthday , Flying

“Somewhere in the gray wood by the river is the huntsman and in the brooming corn and in the castellated press of cities. His work lies all wheres and his hounds tire not. I have seen them in a dream, slaverous and wild and their eyes crazed with ravening for souls in this world. Fly them.”

Cormac McCarthy book Suttree

Suttree (1979)

World , Dreams , Soul , Flying

“To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child of his own. He teases it. He punishes it. He sends it up like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a sleeping monkey's tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna's smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory.
He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.
The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument. From the age of three he has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of story-telling. He has magic in him, this man within the painted mark and swirling skirts.
But these days he has become unviable. Unfeasible. Condemned goods. His children deride him. They long to be everything that he is not. He has watched them grow up to become clerks and bus conductors. Class IV non-gazetted officers. With unions of their own.
But he himself, left dangling somewhere between heaven and earth, cannot do what they do. He cannot slide down the aisles of buses, counting change and selling tickets. He cannot answer bells that summon him. He cannot stoop behind trays of tea and Marie biscuits.
In despair he turns to tourism. He enters the market. He hawks the only thing he owns. The stories that his body can tell.
He becomes a Regional Flavour.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

page 230-231.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love , Men , God , War

“[O]ne of the great goals of this nation's war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry. It's to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Remarks at Chicago's O'Hare Airport (September 21, 2001) http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010927-1.html
2000s, 2001

War , World , Travel , Confidence

“They say I used to scare pitchers just by strolling to the plate but those guys always had a remedy for me. Whenever they were afraid I'd knock one out of the park, they'd walk me and their worries would be over. But once Cobb got on base then their worries really began. He would upset not only the pitcher or catcher, but the infield as well by going from first to third on a sacrifice bunt, scoring from second on an infield out, taking two bases on an outfield fly and making delayed steals. Fans still talk about the home run I hit in the 1932 World Series off Charley Root of the Cubs after I pointed to the rightfield stands. Well, I once remember Cobb beating out four bunts down the third base line in one game against Billy Bradley, a wonderful third baseman for Cleveland. That was after Cobb warned Bradley he would bunt to him every time he got up. Another time Cobb warned Lou Criger, a great catcher with Boston, that he would steal second, third and home on him first chance he got. Well, the first time up Cobb walked and on three pitches stole second, third and home against the dumbfounded Criger.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in "Ruth Considers Ty Cobb As Greatest of Players" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/55058790/

World , Guy , Home , Game

“Now this nation that I love
Has fallen under attack
A mighty sucker punch came flying in
From somewhere in the back
Soon as we could see clearly
Through our big black eye
Man, we lit up your world
Like the 4th of July.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American).
Song lyrics, Unleashed (2002)

Love , World , Flying

“Umpire Billy Bowden is decked by a Jones sweep! How marvellous…I mean what a choker…A sweetly-timed shot by the England batsman, which strikes Bowden on the hip, sending sunnies and walkie-talkie flying. Shame for Jones, that was going for four. Bowden will have secretly loved that, the old drama tart.”

Ben Dirs journalist

Cricket The Ashes First Test, day three as it happened, 2006-11-25, 2007-05-26, BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/6182630.stm,

Love , Time , Flying

“And someone saved my life tonight, sugar bear.
You almost had your hooks in me, didn't you dear?
You nearly had me roped and tied,
Altar-bound, hypnotized.
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear,
You're a butterfly.
And butterflies are free to fly,
Fly away, high away, bye bye.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Song lyrics, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)

Life , Freedom , Flying

“I was honestly very nervous of Constance Wheatcroft. And I wasn't the only one. Her entire family was afraid of her. Dogs were afraid of her. Bindweed in the hedge would wither as she passed; birds would forget their nesting instincts and fly back to north Africa at the sound of her hideous cries.”

Tom Baker (1934) English actor

Family , Dogs , Bird , Flying

“Yamanaka: "The first thing I want you to know is about dodo's. 'Dodo' is the name of an extinct bird which is big but cannot fly. I made the song likening the 'bird' to bands I like, such as 'a great musician who passed away' or 'the split-up band'. Life is mortal, all things die. The last day will psychically also come to a band. However, I sing this song lightly to oppose these themes, something like "even if I die, I'll be back!" or "Only the pillows won't break up, right!?" It's not a very serious song, more a positive one. This song has an alternative sound, which I really like lately."”

Sawao Yamanaka (1968) Japanese singer-songwriter

Source: http://www.jame-world.com/us/articles-2700-wake-up-the-pillows-interview.html

Life , Bird , Singing , Flying

“Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,
Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,
And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,
And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,
And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath
As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Death , Beauty , Dreams , Way

“I shall defer my visit to Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, until its doors shall fly open on golden hinges to lovers of Union as well as lovers of liberty.”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

Letter (April 1851)

Lovers , Flying

“Everything was giant-sized, as if I were looking through binoculars. "I" was walking up giant stalks. At first I didn't know what they were or what I was, for that matter. The stalks were tall as redwood trees, and suddenly "I" realized that I was an insect of some kind. This was a grass blade. I thought I was a fly in a gigantic forest -- a giant fly, because everything was so large and super-real, and I'm used to thinking of flies as small. But I was an ordinary fly. I realized, and this was what the world looked like! Oddly enough, this made me feel better, I didn't care what I was; as long as I was something. So I felt myself go up the grass blade. It's impossible to verbalize the sensations I had, but I remember being aware of the weight of my wings. They seemed very sturdy and reassuring.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), p. 62

World , Feeling , Thinking , Tree

“[M]an knows his own nature, and that which he pursues must surely be his satisfaction? Judging by which measure I determine that the best thing in the world is flying at full speed from pursuit, and keeping up hammer and thud and gasp and bleeding till the knees fail and the head grows dizzy, and at last we all fall down and that thing (whatever it is) which pursues us catches us up and eats our carcasses. This way of managing our lives, I think, must be the best thing in the world—for nearly all men choose to live thus.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

The "thing" which pursues us, we subsequently learn, is either "a Money-Devil" or "some appetite or lust" and "the advice is given to all in youth that they must make up their minds which of the two sorts of exercise they would choose, and the first [i.e. pursuit by a Money-Devil] is commonly praised and thought worthy; the second blamed." (p. 32)
Source: The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), pp. 31–2

Men , World , Way , Nature

“He knew what 's what, and that 's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto I, line 149
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Flying

“I haven't done enough. I don't have solar panels on my house yet. I haven't sorted out the heating, my car's not a Prius, I f---ing fly all the time for my job and I hate it but at the moment I haven't really got a choice, you know, and all these things. The job I'm in is a job that wastes energy left, right and centre. It's madness.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

source http://www.smh.com.au/news/music/thom-out-of-tune/2006/08/13/1155407659754.html

Hate , Cars , Time , Housing

“There is another earthquake in Kyoto. We appreciate it lyrically. A slide of dust slips along a roof gully. A large tree of golden petals shakes and the petals drift to the floor. Birds fly up. Bottles of clear liquid in a shop quiver on a shelf. The water in a puddle shimmers reflections up a wall. A collection of grey roof tiles shift and -- ever faster -- begin to slide down a roof slope.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Section 56
8 1/2 Women

Bird , Tree , Water , Flying

“Call the sun in the dead of the night
And the sun gonna rise in the sky
Touch a man who can't walk upright
And that lame man, he gonna fly.
And I fly, yeah, And I fly.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

Holly Holy
Song lyrics, Touching You (1969)

Sun , Flying , Night , Dead

“[begins the game; gets startled by the enemy character flying away from him] "Okay—UH! …Well, that startled the crap outta me."”

Markiplier (1989) American YouTuber and Internet personality

Video game commentary, SuperHOT prototype (September 15, 2013)
Source: SuperHOT, Markiplier, wikipedia:Markiplier, September 15, 2013, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7qY7s1tCtU,
Source: SUPERHOT - an FPS where time moves only when you move, 2014, July 9, 2014 http://superhotgame.com,

Game , Flying

“From me you fly! Ah! let me crave,
By these poor tears, that hand you gave—
Since, parting with my woman's pride,
My madness leaves me nought beside—
By that our wedlock, by the rite
Which, but begun, could yet unite,
If e'er my kindness held you bound,
If e'er in me your joy you found,
Look on this falling house, and still,
If prayer can touch you, change your will.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book IV, p. 123

Tear , Change , Joy , Parting

“Many refined people will not kill a fly, but eat an ox.”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Taanis Gedanken, 1896. Alle Verk, xii. 77.

People , Flying

“Religion, it stops people from thinking because they think all the answers are in that one book; it impedes progress; it justifies crazy people. Flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

I'm Swiss (2005)

People , Books , Faith , Religion

“Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction — up, down, sideways — by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …

Time (28 March 1960)

Water , Flying

“As the night passed, Rifle updated me on the readiness of our forces, the locations of our aircraft carrier battle groups, and the "Global power" timelines for missions by B-2 stealth bombers flying from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. I had received an intelligence alert that as many as thirty additional terrorist strikes were possible worldwide. But there had been no more attacks… so far. Maybe this was because we'd buttoned up, sealing our vulnerabilities by going to Threat Con Delta. By now, CNN was running tape of President Bush flying back to Andrews and landing in Marine One on the White House lawn. The immediate crisis was over: the President was back in the Oval Office, the Secretary of Defense was in the wounded Pentagon. America was putting on her "game face."”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

I was proud of my country.
Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 247

Game , Intelligence , Housing , Flying

“Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, "I love you."”

Toni Morrison book Jazz

Jazz (1991) First lines

Love , Sadness , Feeling , Girl

“All versions written for nonscientists speak of fused males as the curious tale of the anglerfish—just as we so often hear about the monkey swinging through the trees, or the worm burrowing through soil. But if nature teaches us any lesson, it loudly proclaims life's diversity. There ain't no such abstraction as the clam, the fly, or the anglerfish. Ceratioid anglerfishes come in nearly 100 species, and each has its own peculiarity.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes

"Big Fish, Little Fish", p. 29
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983)

Life , Nature , Tree , Flying

“A micromutation can produce what Goldschmidt would have described as macromutation leading to macroevolution. Since mutations in homeobox genes are inherited in the same way that earlier fruit-fly population geneticists understood the inheritance of the alleles for wing length or bristle number, we can appreciate that evolutionarily significant novelty—which, in turn, could result in the emergence of a new species—can be passed on from parent to child as easily and simply as eye color.”

Jeffrey H. Schwartz (1948) American anthropologist

p, 125
Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species (1999)

Color , Way , Parent , Flying

“Resolutions are flying like snowflakes around here.”

Arlen Specter (1930–2012) American politician; former United States Senator from Pennsylvania

In a hearing on Congress's War Powers (January 30, 2007).

Flying

“You know that weird cat dance that cats do late at night where they go completely stir-crazy and they run around the apartment and you don't know what the hell they're doing? I often feel like that. I dye my hair constantly because I can't sit still with one hair color. That's a perfect example of trying to satisfy some hunger. I want change; I want constant stimuli. I love to fly because I love the high. All of these are like itch kind of things. Sometimes I need to completely get away. I'll get in the car and I'll drive for as long as I can drive. Sometimes it's a sexual urge. I don't need to explain that; it's pretty self-explanatory. It's a craving, a desire. Sometimes it's food. I'm just a giant, big ol' consumer. I want, I need, I crave, I can't say no. I have no control and I'm a complete control freak. It's just crazy”

Colleen Fitzpatrick (1972) American singer and actress

laughs
Asked where her "itches" come from
Attributed

Love , Hunger , Food , Cars

“I am delighted, one more time, by the daring of my species and the audacity of our flying machines. There is poetry and music in our technology, a beauty as touching as that of eagle, moss campion, raven or yonder limestone boulder shining under the Arctic sun.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

"Gather at the River", page 164
Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside (1984)

Beauty , Music , Time , Sun

“If we don't take that time (to be romantic), then it's karate, then it's ballet, and then there's Christmas, and then my husband is flying off to tour around the world.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Discussing staying romantic in a marriage with children. Quoted by Jennifer Weiner in InStyle, February 2010.

World , Time , Christmas , Flying

“Consider one of the standard "laments" or "stories of wonder" in conventional tales of natural history: the mayfly that lives but a single day (a sadness even recorded in the technical name for this biological group - Ephemoptera). Yes, the adult fly may enjoy only a moment in the sun, but we should honor the entire life cycle and recognize that the larvae, or juvenile stages, live and develop for months. Larvae are not mere preparations for a brief adulthood. We might better read the entire life cycle as a division of labor, with larvae as feeding and growing stages, and the adult as a short-lived reproductive machine. In this sense, we could well view the adult fly's day as the larva's clever and transient device for making a new generation of truly fundamental feeders.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

Triumph of the Root-Heads, p. 356
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

Life , Sadness , History , Nature

“And my raps is unbelievable like aliens and flying saucers, no more iron horses 'cause I'm buying Porsches”

Big L (rapper) (1974–1999) American rapper

Horse , Flying

“This is zero hour and there's no way back
Can you feel that power in its arms you're wrapped
All through the night-time
Till the sun comes in?
Now Heaven's Open
Fly right in!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Heaven's Open (1991)

Way , Feeling , Time , Sun

“There are many men now living who were in the habit of using the age-old expression: 'It is as impossible as flying.' The discoveries in physical science, the triumphs in invention, attest the value of the process of trial and error. In large measure, these advances have been due to experimentation.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Dissent, New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262 (1932).
Judicial opinions

Men , Age , Error , Science

““It is the principle of Business, which is more fundamental than the law of gravity. Wherever you go in the galaxy, you can find a food business, a housebuilding business, a war business, a peace business, a governing business, and so forth. And, of course, a God business, which is called ‘religion,’ and which is a particularly reprehensible line of endeavor. I could talk for a year on the perverse and nasty notions that the religions sell, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. But I’ll just mention one matter, which seems to underlie everything the religions preach, and which seems to me almost exquisitely perverse.”
“What’s that?” Carmody asked.
“It’s the deep, fundamental bedrock of hypocrisy upon which religion is founded. Consider: no creature can be said to worship if it does not possess free will. Free will, however, is free. And just by virtue of being free, is intractable and incalculable, a truly Godlike gift, the faculty that makes a state of freedom possible. To exist in a state of freedom is a wild, strange thing, and was clearly intended as such. But what do the religions do with this? They say, ‘Very well, you possess free will; but now you must use your free will to enslave yourself to God and to us.’ The effrontery of it! God, who would not coerce a fly, is painted as a supreme slavemaster! In the face of this, any creature with spirit must rebel, must serve God entirely of his own will and volition, or must not serve him at all, thus remaining true to himself and to the faculties God has given him.”
“I think I see what you mean,” Carmody said.
“I’ve made it too complicated,” Maudsley said. “There’s a much simpler reason for avoiding religion.”
“What’s that?”
“Just consider its style—bombastic, hortatory, sickly-sweet, patronizing, artificial, inapropos, boring, filled with dreary images or peppy slogans—fit subject matter for senile old women and unweaned babies, but for no one else. I cannot believe that the God I met here would ever enter a church; he had too much taste and ferocity, too much anger and pride. I can’t believe it, and for me that ends the matter. Why should I go to a place that a God would not enter?””

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 13 (pp. 88-89)

Women , God , War , Peace

“I love the joy of mountains
Wandering free with no concerns
Every day I find food for this old body
There's leisure for thinking, nothing to do
Often I carry an ancient book
Sometimes I climb a rock pavilion
To look down a thousand foot precipice
Overhead are swirling clouds
A cold moon chilly cold
My body feels like a flying crane”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry

Love , Books , Food , Feeling

“I grew up with the colors of war -- the red colors of fire and blood, the brown tones of earth as it explodes in our faces and the piercing silver of an exploded missile, so bright that nothing can protect your eyes from it. I grew up with the sounds of war -- the staccato sounds of gunfire, the wrenching booms of explosions, ominous drones of jets flying overhead and the wailing warning sounds of sirens. These are the sounds you would expect, but they are also the sounds of dissonant concerts of a flock of birds screeching in the night, the high-pitched honest cries of children and the thunderous, unbearable silence. "War," a friend of mine said, "is not about sound at all. It is actually about silence, the silence of humanity."”

Zainab Salbi (1969) Iraqi American author, women's rights activist

Speech at TEDGlobal 2010

War , Children , Color , Bird

“Fly, like a youthful hart or roe,
Over the hills where spices grow.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Hymn 79, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book I.
Attributed from postum publications, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1773)

Youth , Flying

“Oh could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make with joyful wing
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.”

John Logan (1748–1788) Scottish minister and historian

To the Cuckoo, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Spring , Flying

“There was a pause – just long enough for an angel to pass, flying slowly.”

Ronald Firbank (1886–1926) British novelist

Vainglory (1915), cited from The Complete Ronald Firbank (London: Duckworth, 1961) p. 117.

Angels , Flying

“Wonderful baby, nothin' to fear.
Love whom you will, but doubt what you hear.
They'll whisper sweet things to make untrue.
So be good to yourself, that's all you can do.You're a wonderful baby livin' on love
The sandman says maybe he'll take you above,
Up where the girls fly on ribbons and bows,
Where babies float by, just counting their toes.”

Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter

Wonderful Baby
Song lyrics, Homeless Brother (1974)

Love , Fear , Girl , Baby

“But as to risings, I can tell you why.
It is on contradiction that they grow.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
Up was the heartening and the strong reply
The heart of standing is we cannot fly.”

William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet

"Aubade", line 38; cited from John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) p. 70.
The Complete Poems

Strong , Heart , Flying

“I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote Search. There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove. I went out and talked to genuinely smart, remarkably interesting, first-rate people. I had an infinite travel budget that allowed me to fly first class and stay at top-notch hotels and a license from McKinsey to talk to as many cool people as I could all around the United States and the world.
I went to see Karl Weick, who had totally influenced my life. I had read his work a thousand times, and I'd never met him. I went to Oslo to talk with Einar Thorsrud, who had studied empowerment on oil tankers. I went to the Tavistock Institute in London, where the leading thinkers on organizational development were looking at why people work together effectively in team configurations under certain circumstances.
Word of the meeting got back to McKinsey USA, and I was invited to give a presentation to the top management of PepsiCo… The time was drawing near for the Pepsi presentation to take place. One morning at about 6, I sat down at my desk overlooking the San Francisco Bay from the 48th floor of the Bank of America Tower, and I closed my eyes. Then I leaned forward, and I wrote down eight things on a pad of paper. Those eight things haven't changed since that moment. They were the eight basic principles of Search.”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

Tom Peters (2001) "Tom Peters's True Confessions" in Fast Company, December 2001 ( online http://www.fastcompany.com/44077/tom-peterss-true-confessions, Nov 31, 2001).

Life , People , World , Travel

“Baseball is a slow, boring, complex, cerebral game that doesn't lend itself to histrionics. You "take in" a baseball game, something odd to say about a football or basketball game, with the clock running and the bodies flying.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2010s, 2010, The joys of losing (2010)

Game , Football , Flying

“Instead of inquiring after the nature of the cause of the condensation of nebulous matter, it would indeed be sufficient for the present purpose to call it merely a condensing principle; but since we are already acquainted with the centripetal force of attraction which gives a globular figure to planets, keeps them from flying out of their orbits in tangents, and makes one star revolve around another, why should we not look up to the universal gravitation of matter as the cause of every condensation, accumulation, compression, and concentration of the nebulous matter?”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

p, 125
Astronomical Observations relating to the Construction of the Heavens... (1811)

Star , Nature , Universe , Flying

“Everything is the same, the fog says 'We are fog and we fly by dissolving like ephemera,' and the leaves say 'We are leaves and we jiggle in the wind, that's all, we come and go, grow and fall' — Even the paper bags in my garbage pit say 'We are mantransformed paper bags made out of wood pulp, we are kinda proud of being paper bags as long as that will be possible, but we'll be mush again with our sisters the leaves come rainy season' — The tree stumps say 'We are tree stumps torn out of the ground by men, sometimes by the wind, we have big tendrils full of earth that drink out of the earth' — Men say 'We are men, we pull out tree stumps, we make paper bags, we think wise thoughts, we make lunch, we look around, we make a great effort to realise everything is the same.”

Jack Kerouac book Big Sur

Big Sur (1962)

Men , Drink , Thinking , Sister

“"The people may eat grass": hasty words, which fly abroad irrevocable—and will send back tidings.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Pt. I, Bk. III, ch. 9.
1830s, The French Revolution. A History (1837)

People , Grass , Flying

“You lose no time in taking out a fly,
Or straw, it may be, that torments your eye;
Why, when a thing devours your mind, adjourn
Till this day year all thought of the concern?
Come now, have courage to be wise: begin:
You're halfway over when you once plunge in:
He who puts off the time for mending, stands
A clodpoll by the stream with folded hands,
Waiting till all the water be gone past;
But it runs on, and will, while time shall last.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Book I, epistle ii, p. 104
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Epistles

Courage , Water , Time , Waiting

“Well I've seen travel in many ways
I've traveled in cars and old subways
But in Birmingham some people chose
To fly down the street from a fire hose.
Doin' some hard travelin'…from hydrants of plenty.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

"Talking Birmingham Jam" http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/talking-birmingham-jam.html from I Ain't Marching Anymore (1965)
Lyrics

People , Cars , Way , Travel

“Conflict is necessary for growth. But too often conflict becomes a haven for the soul. Until one day, the soul can no longer free itself. In real growth the soul learns to fly rather than having the ego inflated with praise from accomplishments as if it were a balloon. Only because it buys time, do we develop a strong and protective ego. This is the early stage in the soul’s evolution, until such time when the soul hatches out of its shell, which is the ego, into a new world in which there is incomparable beauty.”

Eugene J. Martin (1938–2005) American artist

Annotated Drawings by Eugene J. Martin: 1977-1978

World , Beauty , Soul , Strong

“John Major: What I don't understand, Michael, is why such a complete wimp like me keeps winning everything.
Michael Brunson: You've said it, you said precisely that.
Major: I suppose Gus will tell me off for saying that, won't you Gus?
Brunson: No, no, no … it's a fair point. The trouble is that people are not perceiving you as winning.
Major: Oh, I know … why not? Because…
Brunson: Because rotten sods like me, I suppose, don't get the message clear [laughs].
Major: No, no, no. I wasn't going to say that - well partly that, yes, partly because of S-H-one-Ts like you, yes, that's perfectly right. But also because those people who are opposing our European policy have said the way to oppose the Government on the European policy is to attack me personally. The Labour Party started before the last election. It has been picked up and it is just one of these fashionable things that slips into the Parliamentary system and it is an easy way to proceed.
Brunson: But I mean you … has been overshadowed … my point is there, not just the fact that you have been overshadowed by Maastricht and people don't…
Major: The real problem is this…
Brunson: But you've also had all the other problems on top - the Mellors, the Mates … and it's like a blanket - you use the phrase 'masking tape' but I mean that's it, isn't it?
Major: Even, even, even, as an ex-whip I can't stop people sleeping with other people if they ought not, and various things like that. But the real problem is…
Brunson: I've heard other people in the Cabinet say 'Why the hell didn't he get rid of Mates on Day One?' Mates was a fly, you could have swatted him away.
Major: Yeah, well, they did not say that at the time, I have to tell you. And I can tell you what they would have said if I had. They'd have said 'This man was being set up. He was trying to do his job for his constituent. He had done nothing improper, as the Cabinet Secretary told me. It was an act of gross injustice to have got rid of him'. Nobody knew what I knew at the time. But the real problem is that one has a tiny majority. Don't overlook that. I could have all these clever and decisive things that people wanted me to do and I would have split the Conservative Party into smithereens. And you would have said, Aren't you a ham-fisted leader? You've broken up the Conservative Party.
Brunson: No, well would you? If people come along and…
Major: Most people in the Cabinet, if you ask them sensibly, would tell you that, yes. Don't underestimate the bitterness of European policy until it is settled - It is settled now.
Brunson: Three of them - perhaps we had better not mention open names in this room - perhaps the three of them would have - if you'd done certain things, they would have come along and said, 'Prime Minister, we resign'. So you say 'Fine, you resign'.
Major: We all know which three that is. Now think that through. Think it through from my perspective. You are Prime Minister. You have got a majority of 18. You have got a party still harking back to a golden age that never was but is now invented. And you have three rightwing members of the Cabinet actually resigned. What happens in the parliamentary party?
Brunson: They create a lot of fuss but you have probably got three damn good ministers in the Cabinet to replace them.
Major: Oh, I can bring in other people into the Cabinet, that is right, but where do you think most of this poison has come from? It is coming from the dispossessed and the never-possessed. You and I can both think of ex-ministers who are going around causing all sorts of trouble. Would you like three more of the bastards out there? What's the Lyndon Johnson, er, maxim?
Brunson: If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.
Major: No, that's not what I had in mind, though it's pretty good.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Andrew Culf, "What the `wimp' really said to the S-H-one-T", The Guardian, 26 July 1993.
'Off-the-record' exchange with ITN reporter Michael Brunson following videotaped interview, 23 July 1993. Neither Major nor Brunson realised their microphones were still live and being recorded by BBC staff preparing for a subsequent interview; the tape was swiftly leaked to the Daily Mirror.

People , Age , Way , Fashion

“That’s almost like the daft things you believe when you’re really little, like I use to believe I could fly. I believed it for years, but it had to be kept secret. I knew if I ever told anyone or showed it off to anyone, I’d lose the power. And if I doubted it, and tried it out just to see, I’d lose the power — so I didn’t. I believed in it. I knew I would be able to fly when there really was a need. Which, fortunately for me, there never was.”

Jane Rogers book The Testament of Jessie Lamb

Source: The Testament of Jessie Lamb (2011), Chapter 1 (p. 6)

Secret , Flying

“We can say that the United States runs the world like the Taliban ran Afghanistan. Cuba is dealt with like a woman caught outside not wearing her burkha. Horrific sanctions are imposed on Iraq in the manner of banning music, dancing, and kite-flying in Kabul. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is banished from Haiti like the religious police whipping a man whose beard is not the right length.”

William Blum (1933–2018) American author and historian

Introduction to Freeing the World to Death

World , Music , Dance , Flying

“I'm learning to fly,
But I ain't got wings.
Coming down
Is the hardest thing.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Learning to Fly, written with Jeff Lynne
Lyrics, Into The Great Wide Open (1991)

Learning , Flying

“Franny has the measles, for one thing. Incidentally, did you hear her last week? She went on at beautiful length about how she used to fly all around the apartment when she was four and no one was home. The new announcer is worse than Grant — if possible, even worse than Sullivan in the old days. He said she surely dreamt that she was able to fly. The baby stood her ground like an angel. She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the lightbulbs.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

Beauty , Angels , Home , Baby

“That night two lovers whispering under the lead canopy of the church were killed by their own passion. Their effusion of words, unable to escape through the Saturnian discipline of lead, so filled the spaces of the loft that the air was all driven away. The lovers suffocated, but when the sacristan opened the tiny door the worlds tumbled him over in their desire to be free, and were seen flying across the city in the shape of doves.”

Jeanette Winterson book Sexing the Cherry

Source: Sexing the Cherry (1989), p.13

World , Lovers , Passion , Flying

“My visions of the future are always pretty much standard issue. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer… and there are flying cars.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

TV Guide (27 December – 2 January 2004), and Foreword to Fray

Cars , Future , Flying

“Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat to be an astronaut.”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

Said at the University of Salford to a 13-year-old aspiring astronaut, who was wishing to fly the NOVA rocket, as quoted in of the gaffe: Prince Philip’s top ten embarrassing moments" in The Daily Mirror (14 December 2009) http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-10s/2009/12/14/gift-of-the-gaffe-prince-philip-s-top-ten-embarrassing-moments-115875-21896895/"Gift
2000s

Flying

“It is surprising that modern textbooks teach the ridiculous idea that birds are the descendents of dinosaurs! What a silly idea! There are many thousands of anatomical differences between reptiles and birds. Reptiles have four perfectly good legs that function just fine. Birds have two legs and two wings which also work fine as they are. If a reptile were to try to evolve into a bird, at some point it would have halfleg and half-wing. Now, it can no longer walk or run; yet, it cannot fly. This creature is doomed to extinction.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: Are you being brainwashed?: Propaganda in science textbooks (2007), p. 19

Idea , Bird , Flying

“The blue distance, the mysterious Heavens, the example of birds and insects flying everywhere —are always beckoning Humanity to rise into the air.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

from "The Successes of Air Balloons in the XIX Century", 1901 http://www.informatics.org/museum/tsilbio.html

Bird , Flying

Quotes about fly page 8

Quotes about fly
page 8