Top 100 The Owl Quotes
#1. When you hear Portuguese, if you're listening fleetingly, it's as if you're hearing Russian, which never happens with Spanish. Because the Portuguese and the Russians share the open vowels and the dark "L," the "owL" sound.
Gregory Rabassa
#2. What sort of work do you do?"
Lifting her skirts with one hand, still holding the owl in the other, she started for the cottage. "Quickening. Citizens of this spacetime call it clockwork magic."
---
Sharon Lynn Fisher
#3. 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.
Tom Brown Jr.
#4. In that moment of truce, of utter surrender, when the rabbit still alive offers no resistance but only waits, is it possible that the rabbit also loves the owl?
Edward Abbey
#5. If the light of the sun is invisible to the owl it is only the fault of that bird and not of the sun.
Ramana Maharshi
#6. The spider is the chamberlain in the Palace of the Caesars The owl is the trumpeter on the battlements of Afrasiyah.
Bill Vaughan
#7. 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.
Ned Vizzini
#8. At home, I love reaching out into that absolute silence, when you can hear the owl or the wind.
Amanda Harlech
#9. Oft in the silence of the night,
When the lonely moon rides high,
When wintry winds are whistling,
And we hear the owl's shrill cry,
In the quiet, dusky chamber,
By the flickering firelight,
Rising up between two sleepers,
Comes a spirit all in white.
Louisa May Alcott
#10. You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
Fables for Our Time, Moral of "The Owl Who Was God" (1940)
James Thurber
#11. 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.
William Blake
#12. Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl.
Mary Oliver
#13. Some things are unchangeably wild, others are stolidly tame. The tiger is wild, and the coyote, and the owl. I am tame, you are tame. There are wild things that have been altered, but only into a semblance of tameness, it is no real change. But the dog lives in both worlds.
Mary Oliver
#14. It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
#15. In the enemy's territory, be as silent as the owl's wings; in friend's territory, be as cheerful as the nightingale's songs.
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#16. For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
William Shakespeare
#17. The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat ...
Edward Lear
#18. Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it.
William Shakespeare
#19. The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!
Edward Lear
#20. Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.
Charles Dickens
#21. At this the Wart's eyes grew rounder and rounder, until they were about as big as the owl's who was sitting on his shoulder, and his face got redder and redder, and a breath seemed to gather itself beneath his heart.
T.H. White
#22. Daughters of the Moon,
children of the Night,
rise like dew together
until the morning's light.
The owl's cry is our anthem,
our altar is the sky.
The Great Mystery is our Mother
to whom now, sisters, fly.
Louise Hawes
#23. He looked from His heavens and saw it was good, the toes and the crows all looked like they should. The bunny was quick, the finch bright as a daisy, the owl flew at night, and the tortoise was lazy.
Lois Greiman
#24. 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.
Clinton Scollard
#25. The owl loves its nest in the ruins, The Huma revels in making kings, The falcon will not leave the King's hand, And the wagtail pleads weakness.2
Rory Stewart
#26. 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.
Georges Bataille
#28. SPIIIIIDERS!" The world ceased its turning. The owl went dumb. The Milky Way flickered on the verge of extinction. Ben hollered it again: "Spiders!" He started thrashing wildly amid the pine needles. "They're all over me!
Robert McCammon
#29. The rat scuttles, the big cat creeps, the monkey dashes,
The bat glides, the white crane soars, the lizard darts,
And the owl hoots
In the middle of the night.
Sandy Fussell
#30. The owl goes not into the nest of the lark.
Victor Hugo
#32. When the owl sings, the night is silent. (Quand le hibou chante, La nuit est silence)
Charles De Leusse
#33. The owl, that bird of onomatopoetic name, is a repetitious question wrapped in feathery insulation especially for Winter delivery.
Hal Borland
#34. He started toward the door, then halted briefly. To the two of them he said, 'Is the owl genuine?'
Rachael glanced swiftly at the elder Rosen.
'He's leaving anyhow,' Eldon Rosen said. 'It doesn't matter; the owl is artificial. There are no owls.
Philip K. Dick
#35. Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait,
His day's hot task hath ended in the west:
The owl, night's herald, shrieks-'tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest;
And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light,
Do summon us to part, and bid good night.
William Shakespeare
#36. There was just a beautiful, unearthly silence. He thought of the wood and the bluebells, the owl and the fox, a Hornby train trundling around his bedroom floor, the smell of a cake baking in the oven. The skylark ascending on his thread of song. F-Fox
Kate Atkinson
#37. The dead cannot sleep long when the moon is round
The dead toss and turn deep in the muddy ground
The dead never rest well in the living house
The dead hear the secrets the owl tells the mouse
Shannon Hale
#38. and the owl made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set down for them.
Charles Dickens
#39. The inauspiciousness of the owl is nothing but the inauspiciousness of the man who thinks that owl is inauspicious!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#40. The girl's called Jill," said the Owl, as loud as it could. "What's that?" said the Dwarf. "The girls are all killed! I don't believe a word of it. What girls? Who killed 'em?
C.S. Lewis
#41. Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl very gravely got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic.
James Thomas Fields
#42. As I sat in the owl forest, I recognized the owl's deeper message: Trust life. Trust the transformation. Trust the twists in the stream. Face-to-face
Leigh Calvez
#43. Two men, one fairly dragging the other along, suddenly entered the clearing and, their eyes trained behind them, ran headlong into the owl's creation and knocked it, every maple branch and every twig of dogwood, to the ground in a splintering crash. The owl fell backward, devastated.
Colin Meloy
#44. Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
Ambrose Bierce
#45. The hooting of the owl with its tender wing is more familiar to me than the crowing of the cock. I prefer the strings to the woodwinds. Intermission: that is the darkness. The light feels like a vague scratching; it is malaise rather than pain. I am glad to sink back into darkness.
Ernst Junger
#46. 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.
Patricia A. McKillip
#48. ... the owl is skeptical of her possessions. She understands that in many circumstances, power can be measured not by what she has, but by what she is able to do without.
Frank Rivers
#49. Understanding is always in some sense retrospective, which is what Hegel meant by remarking that the owl of Minerva flies only at night.
Terry Eagleton
#50. The crow wished everything was black, the Owl, that everything was white.
William Blake
#51. As Hegel put it, only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. Only in extinction is the collector comprehend.
Walter Benjamin
#52. 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!
Charles M. Schulz
#53. In her dream, a large owl perches outside the window, staring at her through the glass with huge, white-rimmed eyes.
Rick Yancey
#54. Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.
David
#55. Thus will we deal with life, my little help-meet. Will we not, eh? What though it blink at us like an owl that is blinded by the sun, we will yet force it to smile.
Leonid Andreyev
#56. Circle me and the needle moves gracefully
Back and forth, if my heart was a compass you'd be North
Risk it all cause I'll catch you if you fall
Wherever you go, if my heart was a house you'd be home.
Owl City
#57. Carrying lockpicks was one bad sign. On the other hand, Owl was taking long enough getting the lock open she almost counted as honest.
"I'm not going to offer to do that," he said. "It'd just annoy you."
"If you do not wish to annoy me, be silent. I'm trying to be quiet about this.
Joanna Bourne
#58. Tonight when the moon
was almost full
the sky too bright for love
I met in a wood
a dream pale owl
with eyes that were not blue
and like myself, he was not wise
and he was not good
but sometime he was true.
John Squadra
#59. Dizzy love turned a star lily pink,
And hung above our lids too flushed to blink,
But icy blue froze the fairytale cold,
Though I treasured you and you sparkled with someone to hold.
Owl City
#60. If you ever shoot a great magical owl with an arrow, you should remember this, Ophelia. Everything is connected. If you touch the ground, you touch the tops of trees. If you touch the trees, you touch the wings of birds.
Karen Foxlee
#61. Are you a stupid sheep in the flock or a free eagle in the sky? Look at the mirror, what are you? Are you some dullish cattle in the herd or a wise owl in the forest? Look at the mirror, what are you?
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#62. I survived
A dreadful accident
In the car crash of the century
My shattered hopes
Collapsed on cold cement
But in the back of the ambulance
I'd never felt so content.
Owl City
#63. They did not hear Grimble, as he lay dying, chant in the true voice of the Boreal Owl, in tones like chimes in the night, an ancient owl prayer, "I have redeemed myself by giving belief to the wings of the young. Blessed are those who believe, for indeed they shall fly."
Kathryn Lasky
#64. Whether important policy decisions are made at Bohemian Grove or not,
it is at the very least disturbing to know that our leaders are gathering together
to worship a massive owl, dress in robes, and recite occult incantations.
Donald Jeffries
#65. The curtains decayed
The daylight poured in
I was never afraid
Of the darkness again
My burns were third-degree
But I'd been set free
'Cause grace had finally found its way
To me
Owl City
#66. Seeing an Earl as an owl on a mantelpiece, and having part of one's face removed by a cat, both on the same morning, can temporarily undermine the self-control of any man.
Mervyn Peake
#67. A city sparkles in the night
How can it glow so bright?
The neighborhoods surround the soft florescent light
Designer skyline in my head
Abstract and still well-read
You went from numbered lines to buildings overhead
Owl City
#68. I was born with a different kind of morality. The morality of an animal - of a crow or a fox or an owl - and not of a normal human being. I
Peter Swanson
#69. He turns to me and blinks. "You need to go to Kingston and I need the feathers of a snowy owl." He says it so plainly, so flat, like we're speaking about pizza toppings.
Anonymous
#70. A bird sings in the morning, an owl hoots at night ... it's still a bloody bird.
Oliver Reed
#71. The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders
At out quaint spirits.
William Shakespeare
#72. Sam was creative and dedicated, but his wasn't the plodding bright-and-early work ethic of the morning person, like mine. It was the crazy creative burst of the night owl, long dark hours of despair before dawn.
Jennifer Echols
#73. Hush little owl,
You're with Twi.
I got the moves to get you by.
Big bad crows.
St. Aggie's scamps
Ain't got nothin to show the champ.
I'll pop a spiral
With a twist,
Do a three-sixty
And scatter mist
Kathryn Lasky
#74. And when the leaves return, and their whisperings fill the night, they'll freeze and burn, where fire and ice collide
Owl City
#75. The large white owl that with eye is blind, That hath sate for years in the old tree hollow, Is carried away in a gust of wind.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
#76. Large, tawny owl flutter past the window. At
J.K. Rowling
#77. 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.
Mervyn Peake
#78. The eastern light our spires touch at morning, The light that slants upon our western doors at evening, The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight, Moon light and star light, owl and moth light, Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade. O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!
T. S. Eliot
#79. An owl is the wisest of all birds because the more it sees the the less it talks.
Christie Watson
#80. Yer ticket fer Hogwarts," he said. "First o' September - King's Cross - it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me. . . . See yeh soon, Harry.
J.K. Rowling
#81. Nite Owl II: But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?
The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it.
Alan Moore
#82. Grounded likely means no phone or computer," Jamie said. "But if I encounter an owl, I'll try to smuggle a message to the outside, okay?
Michelle Hodkin
#83. For the first time in memory, I was unable to sleep not because I was anxious but because I was excited. To live in a damp crowded asshole and sing
if these guys don't know the secret to living, I don't know who does. (The Grieving Owl, page 157)
David Sedaris
#85. The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry, Portends strange things, old women say; Stops every fool that passes by, And frights the school-boy from his play.
Mary Wortley Montagu
#86. When violet eyes get brighter
And heavy wings grow lighter
I'll taste the sky and feel alive again
And I'll forget the world that I knew
But I swear I won't forget you
Oh if my voice could reach back through the past
I'd whisper in your ear:
Oh darling I wish you were here.
Owl City
#87. Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?
Walker Percy
#88. I forget the last time I felt brave, I just recall insecurity
Cause it came down like a tidal wave, and sorrow swept over me
Then I was given grace and love, I was blind but now I can see
Cause I found a new hope from above, and courage swept over me
Owl City
#89. Ere the horne'd owl hoot
Once and twice and thrice there shall
Go among the blind brown worms
News of thy great burial;
When the pomp is passed away,
'Here's a King,' the worms shall say.
Adelaide Crapsey
#90. I twirl through the driveway with angelic grace
Till I slip on the sidewalk and fall on my face
Owl City
#91. I'm a night owl for sure. I was born at 1 A.M., and that's the excuse I use.
Karla Souza
#92. Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.
Henry David Thoreau
#93. To find one's special quality One must lead a life of deep humility. To serve in this way Never question but obey Is the blessing of St Aggie's charity. - The owls of St. Aegolius
Kathryn Lasky
#94. I don't really start writing until later in the night. I'm a night owl.
Ester Dean
#96. We filmed one scene on the beach and there was definitely weird energy around, and we were followed around by a white owl to several different locations, and little things like that, or certain mishaps would happen and you'd have to wonder what that was about.
Rachel True
#97. Sailboats with they were stars, floating softly through the sky, among our dreams that pay goodbye.
Adam Young
#98. With a starry brush, paint the dusk Venetian blue
Owl City
#99. Be the night. Not the wind that stirs the trees, not even the soundless owl a-wing or the tiny mouse crouched motionless. Be the night that flows over all, touching without being felt. For night is a cat.
Robin Hobb
