She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.
— Jerry Spinelli
Unique Owl quotations
You don't need people’s opinion on a fact.
You might as well have a poll asking: ‘Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?’ or ‘Do owls exist?’ or ‘Are there hats?'
There was an old man with a beard, who said: 'It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard.
We learned to be patient observers like the owl.
We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.
First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. & And second, what can I say? I'm a night owl.
Now, you two – this year, you behave yourselves.
If I get one more owl telling me you've – you've blown up a toilet or –" "Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet." "Great idea though, thanks, Mum.
The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.
The Bat that flits at close of Eve Has left the Brain that won't believe.
The Owl that calls upon the Night Speaks the Unbeliever's fright.
I mean, I have done scenes with animals, with owls, with bats, with cats, with special effects, with thespians, in the freezing cold, in the pouring rain, boiling hot; I've done press with every syndication, every country; I've done interviews with people dressed up as cows - there's honestly nothing that's gonna intimidate me!
The crow wished everything was black, the Owl, that everything was white.
There was a wise old owl who sat in a tree The less he spoke the more he heard The more he heard the less he spoke Why can't we be like that wise old owl in the tree? Speech must die to serve that which is spoken.
Our minds can go no further. The human imagination is capable of no further expression of beauty than the carved owl of Athene, the archaic, marble serpent, the arrogant selfish head of the Acropolis Apollo.
She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.
She had always lived her best life in dreams.
She knew no greater pleasure than that moment of passage into the other place, when her limbs grew warm and heavy and the sparkling darkness behind her lids became ordered and doors opened; when conscious thought grew owl's wings and talons and became other than conscious.
Women have in their natures something akin to owls and fireflies.
While men grow stupid and sleepy towards evening, they become brighter and more open-eyed, and show a propensity to flit and sparkle under the light of chandeliers.
This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.
So why am I depressed? That's the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don't know either. All I know is the chronology.
A wise old owl once lived in a wood, the more he heard the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, let's emulate that wise old bird.
Midnight is another planet! When the clock strikes twelve and if you are asleep, wake up, friend, and discover the beauties of this new planet: Discover the silence; discover the tranquillity; speak to the owls, speak to the moon; greet the hedgehogs and disappear in the midst of the mists!
Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn't want to live there.
For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
It is daffodil time, so the robins all cry, For the sun's a big daffodil up in the sky, And when down the midnight the owl call to-whoo! Why, then the round moon is a daffodil too; Now sheer to the bough-tops the sap starts to climb, So, merry my masters, it's daffodil time.
She is our moon. Our tidal pull. She is the rich deep beneath the sea, the buried treasure, the expression in the owl's eye, the perfume in the wild rose. She is what the water says when it moves.
Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls.
We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat. George! Only joking, Mum.
I am both a night owl and an early bird. So I am wise and I have worms.
While Eeyore frets ... ... and Piglet hesitates ... and Rabbit calculates ... and Owl pontificates ...Pooh just is.
The owl flies, in the moonlight, over a field where the wounded cry out.
Like the owl, I fly in the night over my own misfortune.
Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star. Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried, Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar.
Men talk glibly enough about moonshine, as if they knew its qualities very well, and despised them; as owls might talk of sunshine,--none of your sunshine!--but this word commonly means merely something which they do not understand,--which they are abed and asleep to, however much it may be worth their while to be up and awake to it.
A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer.
A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.
The worst part of it is you don't know if he's barking at an owl, the moon or a burglar!" "That's one of the drawbacks of a limited vocabulary!
What we want most is to be held...and told..that everything (everything is a funny thing, is baby milk and papa's eyes, is roaring logs on a cold morning, is hoot owls and the boy who makes you cry after school, is mama's long hair, is being afraid and twisted faces on the bedroom wall)...is going to be alright.
I plead alignment to the flakes of the untitled snakes of a merry cow and to the republicrats for which they scam: one nacho, underpants with licorice and jugs of wine for owls.
The snowy owl has eyes that look just like mine, especially when it widens them.
And while I stand there, staring at it, lowering my sunglasses, something unspoken passes between me and the bird - there's this weird kind of tension, a bizarre pressure, that fuels the following, which starts, happens, ends, very quickly.
Understanding is always in some sense retrospective, which is what Hegel meant by remarking that the owl of Minerva flies only at night.