Heron Quotes

“I am not made for despair”
― lian hearn

“Love is when you find something so great, so... necessary, that it becomes more important to you than your own goals, than your own life - not because your life has no meaning without it, but because it gives your life a meaning it never had before.”
― Dan Wells, Ruins

“And I rose
In a rainy autumn
And walked abroad in shower of all my days
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.”
― Dylan Thomas

“More and more," said Heron, reaching a distance about ten feet away from him, and slowly circling to the side. "Kira, sweetie, I'm going to murder your dad.”
― Dan Wells, Ruins

“You aren’t useless. You have your mind, you have your determination. You can still probably wield a sword better than half of Cress’s army, I’d bet, depth perception or no. Stay and fight and show her that she didn’t ruin you.”

Erik swallows. For a moment, he says nothing, but eventually he nods his head. “I don’t suppose you could heal me, Heron?” he asks, though he sounds like he already knows the answer.

“I can’t make you a new eye,” Heron says, his voice pained. “But I can try to help with healing your other one.”

“What about you, Artemisia?” Erik asks. “Any illusion you could cast to hide it?”

“Nothing permanent. I’m sorry,” she says. “And nothing that would give you back your vision.”

“Ah well,” Erik says, his voice still quavering. “I had a few good years of being handsome. It’s more than most get.”

It’s an attempt at a joke, but no one laughs.

“You’re still handsome,” Heron says quietly.

Erik laughs, the sound hard. “I’m monstrous,” he says.

“You’re brave,” Heron says, louder this time. “And steadfast. And you fight for your people—for what you know is right no matter what it costs you. You are, without a doubt, the handsomest man I’ve ever seen, and if you try to say otherwise one last time, I will break your nose as well, you vain ass.”
― Laura Sebastian, Ember Queen

“I’m sorry,” I say, bringing my hand over my mouth. “I’m so sorry, Erik.”

Erik shakes his head. “I’m useless to you now,” he says. “I have no army for you, Theo. I can’t lead a battalion. I’m not even sure I could lead the way out of this tent.”

“You’re blind,” Heron says, finding his voice again finally.

“Half,” Erik says, motioning to the swollen eye. “This one should heal, I think. But with no depth perception and a narrower field of vision—”

“No,” Heron says. “I mean you’re blind—you aren’t dead. You want to help, you want to save your people, then do it. You don’t have to lead an army to do that.”
― Laura Sebastian, Ember Queen

“He looks at Erik. “The last thing you’re going to do is wallow. You’re going to get back on your feet and figure out how to adjust. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it later.”

Erik grimaces but nods. “I’m sure I will,” he says, forcing himself to sit up, and groaning as he does. “But right now, I’d like to say some far less savory things to you.”

“Keep a list,” Heron says with a small smile. “You can tell them to me over dinner.”

For an instant, Erik is shocked and flustered—a look I’ve never seen on him before. He recovers his wits quickly enough. “It’s a deal,” he says.

Artemisia looks between the two of them, eyebrows raised so high they almost disappear entirely into her hair.

“We are at war,” she says with a sigh. “Surely there is a better time to flirt than when death is around every corner?”

“Truth be told, I’m hard-pressed to think of a better time to flirt,” Erik says, pushing himself to his feet. “You very well may never get another chance.”

Artemisia rolls her eyes.

“Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re rolling your eyes, Art,” he says, holding an arm out to her, which she takes. She guides him a couple of hesitant steps. “Just because you don’t know how to flirt—”

“I know how,” she snaps indignantly as she leads him out of the tent, the two of them continuing to bicker as they go.”
― Laura Sebastian, Ember Queen

“Lodged in the stump and sticking straight up was a thin black feather about five or six inches long. To most it would have looked ordinary, maybe a crow's wing feather. But she knew it was extraordinary for it was the "eyebrow" of a great blue heron, the feather that bows gracefully above the eye, extending back beyond her elegant head. One of the most exquisite fragments of the coastal marsh, right here. She had never found one but knew instantly what it was, having squatted eye to eye with herons all her life.
A great blue heron is the color of gray mist reflecting in blue water. And like mist, she can fade into the backdrop, all of her disappearing except the concentric circles of her lock-and-load eyes. She is a patient, solitary hunter, standing alone as long as it takes to snatch her prey. Or, eyeing her catch, she will stride forward one slow step at a time, like a predacious bridesmaid. And yet, on rare occasions she hunts on the wing, darting and diving sharply, swordlike beak in the lead.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“By the pond, what whiffs, what sniffs?
The residue of stag and duck,
Heron and otter, murky frog.

Money smells, but not enough.”
― Alan W Powers

“There was one my dad told me, setting down the book, since he knew the story by heart, about a fairy queen who lived in the center of the marsh. She was both beautiful and terrible, angry at times and kind at others, and rarely seen by mortals. Mostly she took the form of a great blue heron, surveying her kingdom and all the creatures in it. She disdained most humans, except those she helped make the passage into the next world. But if a living person had a sincere wish and she deemed it noble, she would rise up out of the swamp in her true form, with her Spanish-moss hair and her eyes like the sharpest sunbeams, and she would ask the human to perform a nearly impossible task. If they did, she would grant the wish.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“I draw the blue heron flying up and protecting her territory. The purest images come as I wake, and I need to catch them before they disappear. As I sketch, the old story my father used to tell echoes in my brain. No wonder the fairy queen of the marsh chose this bird to inhabit. The heron is regal in her blue, asserting her will with shimmering, outstretched wings.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“The Toothdancer looked like a stork or a heron, with a long hard bill and a curved, mobile neck. He wore a tattered black suit, with feathers sticking out of the holes, and his hands were very human. When he turned his head, Marra saw half a man's face below the beak, as if it were a mask, and yet his eyes were clearly a heron's, the colour of new-minted coins, and set back from the beak like a bird's.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone

“Day Thirty-Four

Handsome hunting heron,
standing in the weir,
our lives are lived apart
yet our bodies are so near;
as you wade across the water
seeking fish to eat,
I cannot help but wonder:
do you ever get cold feet?

Serenely splendid heron,
staring into river,
the wind that blows your feathers
is causing me to shiver;
the setting sun is sinking,
the ducks are flying home,
I cannot help but wonder:
do you ever feel alone?”
― Jez Green, Wonderland: A Forty-Day Poetic Pandemic Diary

“THE PUDDOCK

A puddock sat by the lochan's brim,
An he thought there was never a puddock like him.
he sat on his hurdies, he waggled his legs,
An cockit his heid as he glowered through the seggs.
The biggsy wee cratur was feelin that prood,
He gapit his mou an he croakit oot lood:
'Gin ye'd a like tae see a richt puddock,' quo he,
'Ye'll never, I'll sweer, get a better nor me.
I've femlies an wives an a weel-plenished hame,
Wi drink for my thrapple an meat for my wame.
The lasses aye thocht me a fine strappin chiel,
An I ken I'm a rale bonny singer as weel.
I'm nae gaun tae blaw, but th' truth I maun tell -
I believe I'm the verra McPuddock himsel.'...

A heron was hungry an needin tae sup,
Sae he nabbit th' puddock an gollupt him up;
Syne runkled his feathers: 'A peer thing,' quo he,
'But - puddocks is nae fat they eesed tae be.”
― John M. Caie, The Puddock

“I'd not have thought to find a heron-mark sword in a place like this," Lan said.”
― Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World

“Dylan writes of the heron-priested shore
and his sensation-seekers suitably amaze:
but the heron is no priest to sober eyes
as, like some litter-picker, it slips about
the sea-weed backs of skerries at low tide
(as often I have seen it in St. Andrews)
or stands grey and silent in the burn
like old grey rags hung among the reeds,
its cold eye and old-age pensioner look
(straggles of grey hair sticking out behind)
seemingly as vacant as the sky
till some frog stirs or an eel or trout drifts
near
and the javelin beak on the S neck leaps into
life:
or weary as Methuselah near his end
heavily flaps towards the patient woods
where the raucous heronry outcaws the rooks
and makes the trees a dirty aerial slum.”
― Tom Scott, The Tree: An Animal Fable