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Magpies Quotes

Browse 34 quotes about Magpies.

Magpies Quotes

“Suburbia Knocks by Stewart Stafford Covert dawn's surreptitious light, A magpie sentry's warning song, Swooping, scanning silent streets, Cackling danger all night long. Metallic cross of crucified clothes, A choir of colours in the breeze, Waterboarded by lashing rain, Made them suffer incrementally. One knock for no, two knocks for yes, One and a half for uncertainty, Three knocks for drinks and company, The rite of suburban courtesy. 37 years ago, down at number 37, Came the first and last royal visit, Dizzying anticipation from first light, Fading fairytale in a curtsying gibbet. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

ClothesSuburbsSuburbiaMagpiesSuburban LifeSuburbanMagpieWaterboardingClotheslineWashing Line
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“Time's Magpies by Stewart Stafford Time’s magpies swoop to taunt and rob, And pluck out hair and gums carefree. Opportunity and energy drained by mob, As we duel pitiless reality. The cat’s jowls swelled in uproar, His gut sags and snarls with pain. Feathery barbs of a matador, Feline fleeing to copse again. A younger cat enters the fight, Ousting the aged tom. Crown prince routs thieving flight, A proud lion of dawn's sun. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”

LifeTimeBirdCatCatsBirdsAgeingTime FliesMagpiesTime Poems
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order--that is, according to their notions of the matter--and hide things lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker complained that whenever his maid servant had been in his library, he could not see comfortably to work again for several days.”

IfsWantShouldWellsPersonsBookMatterOrderLostLeftEasyPaperConcernNotionLibraryServantOwnersFacultyPapersAbrahamMaidsPedantryMagpies
Author:William Hazlitt
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“The way I've talked about my research process is that it was like magpies. I was just sort of moving through all these books and when something shiny would pop out I'd be like, Ooh, I love it! and I'd pluck it out. It's fun to figure out how to use those bits you really love - like I'd read about gold shoes with cork heels. Obviously, Margaret would have to wear those shoes.”

WayBookUseMovingFunBitsProcessFiguresResearchGoldShoesPopsHeelsPluckCorkMagpiesGold Shoes
Author:Danielle Dutton
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“I had become a kind of information magpie, gathering to myself all manner of shiny scraps of fact and hokum and books and art-history and politics and music and film, and developing, too, a certain skill in manipulating and arranging these pitiful shards so that they glittered and caught the light. Fool's gold, or priceless nuggets mined from my singular childhood's rich bohemian seam? I leave it to others to decide.”

KindArtBookFactsLightFilmCertainRichChildhoodInformationFoolSkillsGoldCaughtDevelopingGatheringPricelessScrapPitifulArt HistoryArrangingBohemianNuggetsMagpies
Book:The Moor's last sigh
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“One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that's never been told. ~ Simon”

TwoThreeSecretFiveFourBirthSorrowSixGoldSevenSilverMirthMagpies
Book:Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls
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“Simon remembered a rhyme his mother used to recite to him, about magpies. You were supposed to count them and say: one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that's never been told. "Right," simon said. He had already lost count of the numbers of birds there were. Seven, he guessed. A secret that's never been told. Whatever that was.”

SaidTwoUsedMotherThreeLostNumbersSecretFiveFourBirthSorrowSixBirdGoldSevenRememberedSilverRhymeMirthMagpies
Book:Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls
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“I think I need to spend some time with safari but what arrests my attention are salient, sadomasochism, saccadic, and salad days. I think I will go learn more about coral only to learn a lot more about corollary and counterturn and coffin nail. I go from magnificence to means to marquee to maniac to distyle, ductile, hindsight, shell game, veronica, yardstick, ball field, magpie, variegated, and close shave.”

ThinkingNeedsMeanGamesAttentionFieldsBallsShellsNailsSaladHindsightCoffinsMagnificenceManiacsYardsticksSafariMagpiesMarquee
Author:Dara Wier
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“There's a lot of Hollywood bullshit about flying. I mean, look at the movies about test pilots or fighter pilots who face imminent death. The controls are jammed or something really important has fallen off the plane, and these guys are talking like magpies; their lives are flashing past their eyes, and they're flailing around in the cockpit. It just doesn't happen. You don't have time to talk. You're too damn busy trying to get out of the problem you're in to talk or ricochet around the cockpit. Or think about what happened the night after your senior prom.”

ThinkingTryingLooksMeanImportantProblemHappensEyePastFacesNightGuyTalkingHappenedTestsHollywoodBusyFlyingFighterPlanesDamnFallenAviationPilotsBullshitSeniorGreat AviationPromPilots And FlyingFighter PilotCockpitMagpiesFlailingImminent DeathRicochetSenior Prom
Author:Robin Olds
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“Perhaps it was Maggie, perhaps not. In solitary moments magpies will perch on a branch and mutter soft soliloquies of whines and squeals and chatterings, oblivious to what goes on around them. It is one of those things, I suppose, intelligence now and then does, must in fact now and then do, must think, must play, must imagine, must talk to itself. ... What, finally, intelligence could be for: finding your way back.”

ThinkingWayDoePlayMomentsFactsImagineGoes OnFindingsBirdBranchesNow And ThenSolitaryObliviousMaggieFinding Your WayMagpies
Book:A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm
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