Johannes Kepler Quotes

A mockingbird... was heard to blend the songs of 32 different kinds of birds into a 10 minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.

The idea of the nest in the bird's mind, where does it come from?

Right now the day length is exactly the same as in spring when birds key into it and begin singing. The birds are a little confused by it all and the singing isn't very intense. It only lasts a week or so each fall, but it's still cool to hear spring bird songs at this time of the year.

Why do birds sing in the morning? It's the triumphant shout: 'We got through another night!'

If you dissect a bird / to diagram the tongue, / you'll cut the chord / articulating song.

You ask me what life is. That's like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there's nothing more to know.

Art is really people asking the eternal question, "What is it all about?"

The parrots are great. They do something I refer to as "the Phone Call from Venus." They repeat all my phone conversations. It can very annoying - like having a lot of children in the house screaming.

My ex-girlfriend owned a parakeet…oh my god, that f**king thing would never shut up. But the bird was cool.

So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.

I don't know," I said. "Maybe you're right, and all that stuff I think I missed is overrated. Why should I even bother? What's the point really?" He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do." He moved down to start bagging while I just stood there, letting this sink in. Just something you have to do. No excuse or rationale necessary. I kind of like that.

All things in the world are singing a song, reciting a poem, inaudibly, to their surroundings, to the things they encounter.

Every single song has its own individual character and you can't treat each song the same way, because it wants to be treated differently and there are songs that are like scared birds that you have to sneak up on over the course of months in the woods.

The nest may be constructed, so far as the sticks go, by the male bird; but only the hen can line it with moss and down!

What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.

One faire day in winter makes not birds merrie.

I write because I've always written, can't stop. I am a writing animal. The way a silk worm is a silk-producing animal.

Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question

The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me? It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion (i.e. without any kind of relationship to the world) as it is for there to be a person without a heart. He may not know that he has a religion, just as a person may not know that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a person to exist without a religion than without a heart.

If we ever do find a complete theory of the universe, it would be a great triumph of human reason but it wouldn't leave much for us to do. We need an intellectual challenge.

I wish we had all been born birds instead.

I'd break out in hives if I had to sing ('Stairway to Heaven') in every show. I wrote those lyrics and found that song to be of some importance and consequence in 1971, but 17 years later, I don't know. It's just not for me. I sang it at the Atlantic Records show because I'm an old softie and it was my way of saying thank you to Atlantic because I've been with them for 20 years. But no more of 'Stairway to Heaven' for me.