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Swans Quotes

Browse 207 quotes about Swans.

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Swans Quotes

“Wings are of many kinds. Butterfly's wings, vulture's wings, eagle-wings, spread wings of white swans, dragonfly's serene wings, wings of albatross, lovely wings of humming birds, tiny wings of a fly or a bumble-bee-wings; and when they fly, they fly their best according to their ability of flying. We should not underestimate the size of those heavenly wings.”

WisdomAbilityPowerfulWise WordsWingsSizeTinyFlyingHeavenlyButterflyUnderestimateBirdsSwansVultureHummingbirdsWings To FlyEagleAlbatrossFlying QuotesBeeWingHummingbirdAccordingDragonflyWings And Flying
Author:Munia Khan
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“There is a wind, and the flowers on the window-sill, and their shadows on the curtains, are waving. Like swans dipping their beaks in water. Like the incalculable raising its head, uselessly and wildly, for one moment, before it sinks down, beaten, into the darkness. Like skulls on long, thin necks. Plunging wildly when the wind blows to the end of the curtain, which is their nothingness. Distorting themselves as they plunge. The musty smell, the bugs, the loneliness, this room, which is part of the street outside - this is all I want from life.”

LonelinessShadowSkullsSwans
Book:Good Morning, Midnight
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“Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in the world, and to come into your own. Fairy tales are almost always the stories of the powerless, of youngest sons, abandoned children, orphans, of humans transformed into birds and beasts or otherwise enchanted away from their own lives and selves. Even princesses are chattels to be disowned by fathers, punished by step-mothers, or claimed by princes, though they often assert themselves in between and are rarely as passive as the cartoon versions. Fairy tales are children's stories not in wh they were made for but in their focus on the early stages of life, when others have power over you and you have power over no one. In them, power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness -- from beehives that were not raided, birds that were not killed but set free or fed, old women who were saluted with respect. Kindness sewn among the meek is harvested in crisis... In Hans Christian Andersen's retelling of the old Nordic tale that begins with a stepmother, "The Wild Swans," the banished sister can only disenchant her eleven brothers -- who are swans all day look but turn human at night -- by gathering stinging nettles barehanded from churchyard graves, making them into flax, spinning them and knitting eleven long-sleeved shirts while remaining silent the whole time. If she speaks, they'll remain birds forever. In her silence, she cannot protest the crimes she accused of and nearly burned as a witch. Hauled off to a pyre as she knits the last of the shirts, she is rescued by the swans, who fly in at the last moment. As they swoop down, she throws the nettle shirts over them so that they turn into men again, all but the youngest brother, whose shirt is missing a sleeve so that he's left with one arm and one wing, eternally a swan-man. Why shirts made of graveyard nettles by bleeding fingers and silence should disenchant men turned into birds by their step-mother is a question the story doesn't need to answer. It just needs to give us compelling images of exile, loneliness, affection, and metamorphosis -- and of a heroine who nearly dies of being unable to tell her own story.”

StoriesTransformationFairy TalesSwansFolk TalesHans Christian AndersenThe Wild Swans
Book:The Faraway Nearby
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“Silence is another element we find in classic fairy tales — girls muted by magic or sworn to silence in order to break enchantment. In "The Wild Swans," a princess is imprisoned by her stepmother, rolled in filth, then banished from home (as her older brothers had been before her). She goes in search of her missing brothers, discovers that they've been turned into swans, whereupon the young girl vows to find a way to break the spell. A mysterious woman comes to her in a dream and tells her what to do: 'Pick the nettles that grow in graveyards, crush and spin them into thread, then weave them into coats and throw them over your brothers' backs.' The nettles burn and blister, yet she never falters: picking, spinning, weaving, working with wounded, crippled hands, determined to save her brothers. All this time she's silent. 'You must not speak,' the dream woman has warned, 'for a single world will be like a knife plunged into your brothers' hearts.' You must not speak. That's what my stepfather said: don't speak, don't cry, don't tell. That's what my mother said as well, as we sat in hospital waiting rooms -- and I obeyed, as did my brothers. We sat as still and silent as stone while my mother spun false tales to explain each break and bruise and burn. Our family moved just often enough that her stories were fresh and plausible; each new doctor believed her, and chided us children to be more careful. I never contradicted those tales. I wouldn't have dared, or wanted to. They'd send me into foster care. They'd send my young brothers away. And so we sat, and the unspoken truth was as sharp as the point of a knife.”

Fairy TalesSwansFolk TalesHans Christian AndersenTranformationThe Wild Swans
Book:Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales
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“The Wild Swans at Coole The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine and fifty swans. The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me Since I first made my count; I saw, before I had well finished, All suddenly mount And scatter wheeling in great broken rings Upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures, And now my heart is sore. All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight, The first time on this shore, The bell-beat of their wings above my head, Trod with a lighter tread. Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold, Companionable streams or climb the air; Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake’s edge or pool Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day To find they have flown away”

Swans
Author:William Butler Yeats
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“Across the lilies was a pond, its waters a vibrant green from reflecting the trees around it. In the center of the pond swam two elegant white birds, their long necks curved toward one another. "Swans!" Cinderella breathed. She leaned against the bridge's rail and gazed at the pair of swans gliding across the pond. At her side, Charles rested his elbows on the bridge. "They're here every evening before sundown. Sometimes, during sunset, you can see the light dapple their feathers. Look." Rays of golden light stroked the swans' wings, which shimmered against the still waters. "I used to come here whenever I could to watch them," said Prince Charles. "I'm certain it's been the very same pair of swans for years. When I saw them, I'd feel a little less lonely." "How happy they look," mused Cinderella, watching as the swans took flight, their feet skidding across the pond before they soared into the sky. "Free to come and go as they please.”

LoveFreedomSwansCinderella And Charles
Book:So This is Love
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“As he made his way back to his home on the Dijver, along the canals, beside the calm waters, Borluut felt his regret, his remorse at having divulged his worries grow at the sight of the noble swans, sealed-in snow, which, prisoners of the canals, prey to the rain, the sadness of the bells, the shadow of the gables, have the modesty to remain silent and only complain, with a voice that is almost human, when they are about to die...”

MelancholySwansBrugesSwan Song
Book:The Bells of Bruges
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“Swan, my mother said, sensing my excitement. It pattered the bright water, flapping its great wings, and lifted into the sky. The word alone hardly attested to its magnificence nor conveyed the emotion it produced. The sight of it generated an urge I had no words for, a desire to speak of the swan, to say something of its whiteness, the explosive nature of its movement, and the slow beating of its wings. The swan became one with the sky. I struggled to find words to describe my own sense of it. Swan, I repeated, not entirely satisfied, and I felt a twinge, a curious yearning, imperceptible to passersby, my mother, the trees, or the clouds.”

SwansMagnificence
Book:Just Kids
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“My very first necklace, from my grandmother, had a swan pendant. Now, as an adult, I do still wear a swan pendant and it's my favourite one. I have been on dates wearing it and always get the same comment: "Did you know that swans may look graceful and elegant but they can break your arms with their wings?" They always say it like it's a bad thing. I think it's one of the most fantastic things in nature!”

SymbolismSwansWomens InspirationalWomens EmpowermentWomens StrengthSwan
Author:C. JoyBell C.
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“My thoughts swerve back to swans' eggs. Such splendid things---their whites are purer, more translucent than those of any other egg. Perhaps their boiled yolks might be mixed with firm fresh butter, essence of anchovies, minced herbs, even a chopped shallot. And then returned to their hardboiled whites in softly beaten mounds. A swan's egg en salade, I think, smiling.”

Food For ThoughtEggsSaladSwansSeasoningsEgg White
Book:Miss Eliza's English Kitchen
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“Youngest Brother, swan's wing, where one arm should be, yours the shirt of nettles short a sleeve and me with no time left to finish -- I didn't mend you all the way back into man though I managed for your brothers; they flit again from court to playing-courts to courting, while you station yourself, wing folded from sight, avian eye to the outside, no rebuke meant but love's. Was it better then, the living on the water, the taking to air...? ("Ever After," from the book 'The Poets' Grimm')”

SwansThe Poet S Grimm
Author:Debora Greger
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“Ella woke again as they entered the picturesque village of Bibury. A stone bridge arched over the placid River Coln, and Ella craned her neck to watch a swan and its fuzzy, brown cygnets floating alongside beds of watercress and the boggy watermeadow called Rack Isle. Ella lifted her phone and snapped a picture. "It's like someone cued them." "I called ahead." They drove past a row of sandstone cottages with colorful gardens, and in the center of town, Heather pointed out the ancient Saxon church. "St. Mary's was on a Christmas stamp a few decades back." Ella rolled down her window to take another picture. "It's all so- so perfect.”

VillageSwansMother And DaughterPicturesqueBiburyCygnets
Book:Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor
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“The fresco on one large wall was indeed the marvel Julian had promised. It was a Pre-Raphaelite portrayal of the Children of Lir, those four siblings cursed to remain swans for nine hundred years. Despite a ragged crack that was making its way down the plaster, the fresco was as pulsing with life as though one was actually looking out on a placid freshwater lake. When Marjan turned away from the painted wall, she saw its real-life inspiration outside the window. There, through floor-length panes, stood a pond complete with a flock of those gracious birds, the white-necked swans.”

PaintingSwansMarjan And JulianFresco
Book:Rosewater and Soda Bread
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“Dream of the Tundra Swan Dusk fell and the cold came creeping, cam prickling into our hearts. As we tucked beaks into feathers and settled for sleep, our wings knew. That night, we dreamed the journey: ice-blue sky and the yodel of flight, the sun's pale wafer, the crisp drink of clouds. We dreamed ourselves so far aloft that the earth curved beneath us and nothing sang but a whistling vee of light. When we woke, we were covered with snow. We rose in a billow of white.”

PoetryNatureColdWinterSnowFrostSwansTundra
Book:Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold
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“It's a wonder they can sit down at all, and when they walk, nothing touches their legs under the billowing skirts, except their shifts and stockings. They are like swans, drifting along on unseen feet; or else like the jellyfish in the waters of the rocky harbour near our house, when I was little, before I ever made the long sad journey across the ocean. They were bell-shaped and ruffled, gracefully waving and lovely under the sea; but if they washed up on the beach and dried out in the sun there was nothing left of them. And that is what the ladies are like: mostly water.”

SwansJellyfish
Book:Alias Grace
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“Coal-black is better than another hue In that it scorns to bear another hue; For all the water in the ocean Can never turn the swan's black legs to white, Although she lave them hourly in the flood.”

TurnsBlackWaterWhiteBearsOceanLegsFloodCoalScornSwansHue
Book:The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare: Venus and Adonis. The rape of Lucrece. Sonnets. The passionate pilgrim. A lover's complaint. Titus Andronicus. Romeus and Juliet. Appendix, glossarial index. Vol. 10
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