Cicadas Quotes

• Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.

  John Berger

  Soul, Alive, Legends

  John Berger (2012). “G. John Berger”, p.197, A&C Black

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• Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die

  Matsuo Basho

  Cry, Dies

  Matsuo Basho (2006). “Narrow Road to the Interior”, p.132, Shambhala Publications

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• I work even in the middle of the day, in the full sunshine, and I enjoy it like a cicada.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Work, Sunshine, Middle

  Vincent van Gogh, Ronald Pickvance (1984). “Van Gogh in Arles”, p.27, Metropolitan Museum of Art

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• Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.

  Matsuo Basho

  Nature, Rocks, Sound

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• Again and again, the cicada's untiring cry pierced the sultry summer air like a needle at work on thick cotton cloth.

  Yukio Mishima

  Summer, Air, Cotton

  Yukio Mishima (1990). “Runaway Horses”, Vintage

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• A grub in filth is dirty, but it changes into a cicada and sips dew in the autumn breeze. Rotting plants have no luster, but they turn into foxfire and glow in the summer moonlight. So we know that purity emerges from impurity, and light is born from darkness.

  Zicheng Hong

  Summer, Dirty, Autumn

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• Life is the blossoming of flowers in the spring, the ripening of fruit in the fall, the rhythm of the earth and of nature. Life is the cry of cicadas signalling the end of summer, migratory birds winging south in a transparent autumn sky, fish frolicking in a stream. Life is the joy beautiful music installs in us, the thrilling sight of a mountain peak reddened by the rising sun, the myriad combinations and permutations of visible and invisible phenomena. Life is all things.

  Daisaku Ikeda

  Beautiful, Summer, Spring

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• I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas - if I like these things, why should I apologize?

  Haruki Murakami

  Summer, Pain, Light

  "A Wild Sheep Chase". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1982.

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• The Cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. You are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts.

  Isak Dinesen

  Running, Song, Kings

  Isak Dinesen (1987). “Out of Africa”, Crown Pub

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• The collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field. These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as totality, is a new sonic event.

  Iannis Xenakis

  Summer, Song, Rain

  Iannis Xenakis (1992). “Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition”, p.9, Pendragon Press

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• The air was cold to the lungs, the long grass dripping wet, and the herbs on it gave out their spiced astringent scent. In a little while on all sides the Cicada would begin to sing. The grass was me , and the air, the distant invisible mountains were me, the tired oxen were me. I breathed with the slight night-wind in the thorn trees.

  Isak Dinesen

  Tired, Night, Long Grass

  Isak Dinesen (1938). “Out of Africa”

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• Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright; the spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best, from the northwest corner of a brand-new crescent moon crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune.

  Robert Hunter

  Stars, Moon, Light

  Robert Hunter, David G. Dodd (2005). “The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics: The Collected Lyrics of Robert Hunter and John Barlow, Lyrics to All Original Songs, with Selected Traditional and Cover Songs”, p.263, Simon and Schuster

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• Don't buy society’s definition of success. Because it’s not working for anyone. It’s not working for women, it's not working for men, it's not working for polar bears, it's not working for the cicadas that are apparently about to emerge and swarm us. It’s only truly working for those who make pharmaceuticals for stress, sleeplessness and high blood pressure.

  Arianna Huffington

  Graduation, Stress, Heart

  Arianna Huffington's Commencement Address at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, www.smith.edu. May 19, 2013.

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• The heat is searing and superb. The paddocks surrounding the town are bleached blond. The distant ring-barked gums, mile after mile, wriggle in the heat-waves, and seem to melt like the bristles of a melting hairbrush. The hills turn powder-blue and gauzy. Mirages resembling pools of mica and shallows of crystal water appear at the far ends of streets and roads. Punctually at eleven every burning morning, the cicadas begin to drill the air, to drill themselves also, ceaselessly and relentlessly, to death in one short day after seven long years underground.

  Hal Porter

  Morning, Nature, Air

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• Mama used to tell us a story about a cicada sitting high in a tree. It chirps and drinks in dew, oblivious to the praying mantis behind it. The mantis arches up its front leg to stab the cicada, but it doesn't know an oriole perches behind it. The bird stretches out its neck to snap up the mantis for a midday meal, but its unaware of the boy who's come into the garden with a net. Three creatures—the cicada, the mantis and the oriole—all coveted gains without being aware of the greater and inescapable danger that was coming.

  Lisa See

  Boys, Garden, Praying Mantis

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• He was sure that he was not the cause of the abrupt silence. His passage through the canyon had not previously disturbed either birds or cicadas. Something was out there. An intruder of which the ordinary forest creatures clearly did not approve. He took a deep breath and held it again, straining to hear the slightest movement in the woods. This time he detected the rustle of brush, a snapping twig, the soft crunch of dry leaves-and the unnervingly peculiar, heavy, ragged breathing of something big.

  Dean Koontz

  Breathing, Silence, Bird

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• I closed my eyes and listened to the occasional chirps of tiny birds hidden in the trees around us, the bubbling of water over rocks down below, cicadas rattling a chorus off in the distance. All sounds of the world carrying on like it always had. So much could change or be lost, and still, the rest of the world went on like it was nothing. It didn't seem wrong, but it didn't seem right either. I'd gone on today like it was nothing. I'd laughed and felt happy and forgotten for a little while that this was now a world without my brother in it.

  Jessi Kirby

  Brother, Distance, Eye

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• Who when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist the gay and exotic butterflies, and singular cicadas, will associate with these lifeless objects, the ceaseless harsh music of the latter, and the lazy flight of the former - the sure accompaniments of the still, glowing noonday of the tropics.

  Charles Darwin

  Butterfly, Gay, Glowing

  Charles Darwin (1864). “Journal of Researches Into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World: Under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy”, p.299

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• In White Summer, Joelle Biele exhibits a Roethke-like affinity with nature and natures creatures. At times a miniaturist, Biele constructs exquisite addresses to a heron, cicada, spider, catalpa tree, mockingbird, snail, cormorant, and others. These pitch-perfect poems are written with a delicate, meticulous attention to craft and music. Like the joy she takes in her subjects, this collection is a joy to read.

  Elizabeth Spires

  Summer, White, Perfect

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• Anyway, I'm digressing, but this is just kind of this 10-and-a-half-minute, ambient - you hear cicadas and birds and the wind outside and crickets as I'm swelling the piece. I could never do that on a pop record. I could, but why would I want to be agitating?

  Andrew Bird

  Wind, Bird, Pieces

  Interview with Genevieve Koski, music.avclub.com. January 20, 2009.

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