Quotes about songbird

A collection of quotes on the topic of songbird, likeness, living.

Quotes about songbird

“Your head is a living forest full of songbirds.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

“Bird.
A good name for her. She wasn't a sparrow or a songbird, though. She stood so straight, and her face was strong.”

Patricia Reilly Giff (1935) American children's writer

Source: Water Street (2006), Chapters 1-10, p. 27-28

Bird, Strong

“In songbirds, it is generally the male of the species that sings, and for some species, the larger the repertoire, the more likely it is to attract a mate.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

Singing

“We lived one year in a suburb so new it was still being built in fields of red clay: a neat grid of streets named after songbirds was being dropped like a lattice of dough over a pie. Up and down Robin and Tanager and Bluebird I raced my bike; in a storm I pedaled so fast I hoped to catch up with the wind-driven rain. As I sped into the riddling wet warmth I shook my right hand according to a magical formula of my own. The universe, signaled by its master, groaned, revolved, released a flash of lightning. At last the imagination, like a mold on an orange, was covering the globe of my mind.”

Edmund White book A Boy's Own Story

Source: A Boy's Own Story (1982), Chapter Three (p. 81).

Hope, Imagination, Universe

“I want to bring down civilization. It's really clear that civilization is killing the planet. I’m interested in living in a world that has more wild salmon every year than the year before. A world that has more migratory songbirds every year than the year before. A world that has less dioxins and flame retardants in mothers' breast milk. A world not being destroyed. A world where krill populations aren’t collapsing. A world where there are not dead zones in the oceans. A world not being systematically dismantled. I want to live in a world that is not being killed. I will do whatever it takes to get there.”

Derrick Jensen (1960) American environmentalist

Interview with No Compromise, 2005. http://www.nocompromise.org/issues/26jensen.html

World, Dead

“One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value. Wildflowers and songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use. Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe) its stability depends on its integrity, they are entitled to continuance.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "The Land Ethic", p. 210.

Communication, Motivation, Animals, Dependency

“And you can cage the songbird,
But you can't make her sing.
And you can trap the free bird,
But you'll have to clip her wings.
`Cause she'll soar like a hawk when she flies,
But she'll dive like an eagle when she dies.”

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

Cage the Songbird, written by Elton John, Bernie Taupin, and Davey Johnstone
Song lyrics, Blue Moves (1976)

Bird, Singing

“I’ve heard that some of the larger spiders hunt songbirds. I have no objection to that. The spiders belong here, too. Let nature do what it needs to do. We who are people know more than to guide ourselves by nature’s practices.”

Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) American writer

The Tales of Zanthias (published in Weird Tales (July-August, 2003); reprinted in David G. Hartwell (ed.), Year’s Best Fantasy 4 (pp. 400-401))
Short fiction

People, Nature