"Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove, The Linnet and Thrush say, "I love and I love!" In the winter they're silent—the wind is so strong; What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing, and loving—all come back together. But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he— "I love my Love, and my Love loves me!""

"For birds the goal is simple—to secure a territory, to win a mate, to contribute the only lasting legacy of their brief lives—the passing on of genes to the next generation."

"Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last."

"You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff."

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

"Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song."

"Birds of a feather will gather together."

"Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along."

"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again."