Bumblebee Quotes

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little Indian boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and then there were seven. Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in halves and then there were six. Six little Indian boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little Indian boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little Indian boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little Indian boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

Did I mention I've finally decided on a nickname for you?" "I didn't know you were looking." Well, I've given the matter some serious thought." "And what have you come up with?" "Cookie," I anounced proudly. Xavier scrunched up his face. "No way." "You don't like it? What about Bumblebee?" "Worse." "Snookie-Wookie?" "Do you have any cyanide?" "Well, some of us are just a bit hard to please.

Here I sit in the presence of queens and heroes and magic. Yes, magic. It is only when we have grown too old that we fail to see that the Maker’s world is swollen with magic – it hides in plain sight in music and water and even bumblebees

If we cannot start up to the sky of our dreams with the bluebirds of ecstasy or soar along on the rhythm of the humming bumblebees of our imagination, we must dare to think and apprehend what is hindering us, trying to capture the wonders of the moment. ("Waiting for Mr. Out-placer")

Outplacement should give us the glow of a lighthouse, and the outplacer must bring the joy of the bluebirds, the humming of the bumblebees, and a buzz of excitement back into our lives. (“Waiting for Mr. Outplacer“)

Jane,' she said, climbing down from the chair. 'Remember last year when I built that model wind tower for you and you wrote those poems for me?' And you said you'd never switch homework assignments with me again.' For good reason. My teacher had a hard time believing I wrote Tra-la the joy of tulips blooming, Ha-ha the thrill of bumblebees zooming. I'm alive and I dance, I'm alive though death is always looming. When I finally convinced her that I had, she asked me if I needed to talk to the school counselor.

But then a bumblebee bumbled above us and it stole our attention the way flying things can.

I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.

Light as feathers the witches fly, The horn of the moon is plain to see; By a firefly under a jonquil flower A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.

A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.

Allowances can always be made for your friends to disagree with you. Disagreement, vehement disagreement, is healthy. Debate is impossible without it. Evil does not question itself, only hope questions itself. Even the incorruptible are corruptible if they cannot accept the possibility of being mistaken. Infallibility is a sin in any man. All laws can be broken and are. Often. Like when a bumblebee flies or an ancient regime is toppled.

And he will have a great aunt called Elinor who tells him there's a world not like this one. A world with neither fairies nor glass men, but with animals who carry their young in a pouch in front of their bellies, and birds with wings that beat so fast it sounds like the humming of a bumblebee, with carriages that drive along without any horses and pictures that move on their own accord... She will tell him that even the most powerful men don't carry swords in the other world, but there are much, much more terrible weapons there...She will even claim that the people there have built coaches that can fly...So the boy will think that perhaps he'll have to go alone one day, if he wants to see that world...Because it must be exciting in that other world, much more exciting than in his own...

It is a truth universally acknowledged," Mustardseed said, flying in lazy loops like an intoxicated bumblebee, "that a fairy in possession of a good appetite must be in want of pie.

If you were an animal, what would you be?" I wrote, "A bumblebee trying to fuck a marble.

Snudoo!” Bumblebee cheered. She lifted her little talons up and did a very good impression of something cute. Something more like a tamarin and definitely not like a HiveWing.

Bumblebee when I named her! I’d like to see you come up with a better name at that age!” “Wordibird,” Bumblebee said sleepily from her sling, and Cricket laughed again.

But then a bumblebee bumbled above us and it stole our attention the way flying things can. Mom... Dad... I'm okay. I am not being starved, or beaten, or unnecessarily frightened.

Wild mushrooms and carpets of moss and bumblebees turning figure eights in the slashes of sun in the woods, as if they too are stupefied by the beauty of the place.

And what's wrong wi' the way ye smell?' he said heatedly. 'At least ye smelt like a woman, not a damn flower garden. What d'ye think I am, a man or a bumblebee? Would ye wash yourself, Sassenach, so I can get within less than ten feet of ye?

SNUDOO!” cried the little dragonet tied snugly to Cricket’s chest. Bumblebee reached her tiny talons toward Sundew. “MRBLE SNUDOO!” “Is that tiny lizard trying to say my name?” Sundew asked, alarmed. “How did THAT happen?

Bumblebee,” he said as the kitchen went dark. “I want you to thank your friend next time you see him.” “My friend?” “Yeah. The boy who was with you last night. What’s his name?” “Wesley,” I muttered. “Right,” Dad said. “Well, I deserved it. He was brave to do what he did. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I’m glad you have a friend who’s willing to stand up for you. So please tell him I said thanks.

Sundew tugged the scarf a little higher up Bumblebee’s neck. “Our turn, little bug. Stay very still and do NOT distract me, understand?” “Ooobeegoo,” Bumblebee said sternly. She patted Sundew’s face. “Do NOBBY splamflamp.” “I wasn’t planning on being splamflamp,” Sundew retorted, “whatever that is.

He looks like a bumblebee caught under a glass,” Lassiter remarked. Butch glanced over at the angel. “I know you’re immortal and shit, but you better run like a motherfucker when you let him out.” “You know, I’m inclined to agree with you.

-Bumblebee bat, how do you see at night? -I make a squeaky sound that bounces back from whatever it hits. I see by hearing.

It was rather like the exit of a bumblebee and left a noticeable silence behind it.

Oh, go sting the BumbleBee.

EW,” Bumblebee declared, in perhaps her most accurate observation so far.

The bumblebee was so vibrant, so alive, and so beautiful, its presence renewed Eragon’s will to survive. A world that contained a creature as amazing as THAT bumblebee was a world he wanted to live in.

I am fat with love! Husky with ardor! Morbidly obese with devotion! A happy, busy bumblebee of marital enthusiasm. I positively hum around him, fussing and fixing. I have become a strange thing. I have become a wife. I find myself steering the ship of conversations- bulkily, unnaturally- just so I can say his name aloud. I have become a wife, I have become a bore, I have been asked to forfeit my Independent Young Feminist card. I don't care. I balance his checkbook, I trim his hair. I've gotten so retro, at one point I will probably use the word pocketbook, shuffling out the door in my swingy tweed coat, my lips red, on the way to the beauty parlor. Nothing bothers me. Everything seems like it will turn out fine, every bother transformed into an amusing story to be told over dinner. 'So I killed a hobo today, honey...hahahaha! Ah, we have fun

Oooom-yum?” Bumblebee inquired, reaching for it. “Eeee?” “No,” Cricket said. “GROSS, Bumblebee!” “GWOSE!” Bumblebee cried, waking up an anaconda as thick as Sundew’s tail in the next tree over.

The bumblebee was so vibrant, so alive, and so beautiful, its presence renewed Eragon’s will to survive. A world that contained a creature as amazing as that bumblebee was a world he wanted to live in. By

CUSTOMER: Do you have a book with a list of careers? I want to give my daughter some inspiration. BOOKSELLER: Ah, is she applying to university? CUSTOMER: Oh no, not yet. She’s just over there. Sweetheart? (a four year old girl comes over) CUSTOMER: There you are. Now, you talk to the nice lady, and I’m going to find you a book on how to become a doctor or a scientist. What do you think about that? (The girl says nothing) CUSTOMER (to bookseller): Won’t be a sec. (Customer wanders off into non-fiction) BOOKSELLER: So, what’s your name? CHILD: Sarah. BOOKSELLER: Sarah? That’s a beautiful name. CHILD: Thank you. BOOKSELLER: So, Sarah, what do you want to be when you grow up? CHILD: . . . A bumblebee. BOOKSELLER: Excellent.

Ta-daaaaa!” Bumblebee declared, working two of her wings free and flinging them out to either side.

When the weaver bird flies, nobody talks; when the busy bee flies, no one will make comments... But when a human being begins to fly, you begin to hear talks in the town such as "abomination!... where did he get the wings from?". Never mind! Your dreams are your wings, so decide to fly!

EKNO!” Bumblebee objected, throwing her arms around Cricket’s neck. “NOBYNOBYNOBE!” “That does look like fun,” Tsunami said wryly. “Bumblebee, be reasonable!” Cricket yelled over her wails. “There might be a war where I’m going! Dragons all stabbing each other! Very bad things! I don’t want you near that. I want you here and safe!” “STABEEBAD,” Bumblebee argued. “YUUUUsafe.” “I will be careful and I’ll come back soon. I promise.” She disentangled Bumblebee and the sling and handed them over to an extremely skeptical-looking Tsunami. “GROWLFACE!” the dragonet shouted. “ARGNORAW RGRUMPHLE!

This simple fact explains an awful lot about the biology and conservation of bumblebees. They have to eat almost continually to keep warm; a bumblebee with a full stomach is only ever about forty minutes from starvation. If a bumblebee runs out of energy, she cannot fly, and if she cannot fly, she cannot get to flowers to get more food, so she is doomed

Like the bumblebee, no one told me that I couldn't, so I did!

According to physics, bumblebees can’t fly, but nobody ever explained physics to bumblebees, so they fly around anyway.

Engineers can prove that a bumblebee, with its heavy body and little bitty wings, can't fly. But nobody tells the bumblebees ... and they fly just fine.

I'd never been this close to the Obscure Object before. It was hard on my organism. My nervous system launched into "Flight of the Bumblebee." The violins were sawing away in my spine. The timpani were banging in my chest. At the same time, trying to conceal all of this, I didn't move a muscle. I heardly breathed. That was the deal basically: catatonia without; frenzy within.

BLEH!” Bumblebee announced suddenly. She threw the tuber at Swordtail’s head, bonking him on the snout. “NOMOBLEH! GIMMEEGO! EEEEEMEGO!” “Hey, ouch, you violent little larva,” Swordtail yelped.

The key to helping our rarer species to thrive is probably simply to add more flower patches to the landscape, making it a little easier for them to find food and keep their nests well provisioned.

As I learned more about evolution, I realized that from nature’s point of view, you and I ain’t such a big deal. Humans are just another species on this planet trying to make a go of it, trying to pass our genes into the future, just like chrysanthemums, muskrats, sea jellies, poison ivy … and bumblebees.

What if an infection was a message, a brightness a kind of symphony? As a defense? An odd form of communication? If so, the message had not been received, would probably never be received, the message buried in the transformation itself. Having to reach for such banal answers because of a lack of imagination, because human beings couldn’t even put themselves in the mind of a cormorant or an owl or a whale or a bumblebee.

Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumblebee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams. —Ashley Smith

I hope that you have inherited a mind that is open to such small mysteries. They are no less thought-provoking than the stars and galaxies up above. I think it requires more intelligence to create a bumblebee than a black hole.

I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window. Its reflection fills the oval mirror above the leathern couch where my uncle sits, gloating over a tattered book. A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.

I guess I think differently than most folks. I think the reason the world is a mystical, enchanting place, is because of the cycle of life. My body will decompose, but maybe some little element of it will be transformed into a particle of dirt, over years and years,and then a glorious flower will be nurtured by this particle of dirt. Then this flower will nourish a random bumblebee, who in turn will be eaten by a raven. So, in some future life, I'll be able to fly. I look forward to that. I've always admired the freedom of birds.

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself. —NED BLOODWORTH’S BEEKEEPER’S JOURNAL

Q: How do you shoot a bumblebee? A: With a bee-bee gun.

To subdue the bumble-bee!

According to the laws of aerodynamics the bumblebee can’t fly. But the bumblebee doesn’t know that, so it just carries on flying around.

I’m nothing. I’m just a humble man in a bumblebee costume trying to pollinate with a woman as romantic as a flower. Love doesn’t have to sting.

In flight a bumblebee flaps its wings 200 times per second (which equals 12,000 rpm), roughly equivalent to the speed of a high-revving motorbike engine.

Sadly, one of the few places where bumblebees generally won’t settle is in the bumblebee nest boxes widely sold in garden centres. Whatever

How immensely human to be scared of bumblebees and ghosts while speeding around in flaming death machines all day like it was nothing.

the way that good ideas often blossom: a bumblebee brings half an idea from one realm, and pollinates another fertile realm filled with half-formed innovations

When bumble-bees in solemn flight

Happy and free like a bumblebee

Mad as a mule chewin’ bumblebees.

His heart smack[ed] against his ribs like a bumblebee at a window.

was to magic what a bicycle is to a bumblebee, he nevertheless

Some things that fly there be, — Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:

Below that was the thrum of bumblebees climbing in and over and around the peonies. Getting lost. Bumbling around. It looked comical, ridiculous. But then so much did, unless you knew.

Eep,” Bumblebee said in an even smaller voice. “Beebuf?” “Get off my face,” Sundew snapped. “CAREFULLY. I am REALLY MAD AT YOU.” “Beebeebeebeebeebuf,” Bumblebee protested, wiggling down until she was hanging from Sundew’s snout with her tail around Sundew’s neck. She managed to scoot herself back into the sling and leaned into Sundew’s chest, patting her heart under the jade frog. “Meesnugoo.” “Goo is right,” Sundew said, studying their abductor. She was stuck on one of the towering leaves of a plant that sprawled across a small island in the lake below her. The leaf was bright lime green, with hundreds of thin red stalks poking out of it that made the entire plant look fuzzily scarlet from afar. At the tip of each stalk was a glistening drop, like a translucent murder pearl.

That bitch should not be in a club like this. As if her language is not enough indication, there is also the matter of her Hot Topic mallrat outfit: short black leather skirt with buckles up the side, mass-produced “vintage” Ramones T-shirt, and piss-yellow leggings with some horrible pair of pink patent-leather shoes. She looks like a neon sign bumblebee by way of early Debbie Harry rip-off.

I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

When at last the time came for Wonder Woman's costume unveiling, the room was abuzz. Literally. Bumblebee's costume had malfunctioned again, sending electrical stings all around the classroom, which heightened the excitement.

The paths of most of our lives, if mapped out with string, would look a lot like Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, as we flitted from random event to random event, making chance encounters with countless numbers of people.

Alex was right in front of the mantel now, bent forward, his nose mere inches from a picture of me. "Oh,God. Don't look at that!" It was from the year-end recital of my one and only year of ballet class. I was six: twig legs, a huge gap where my two front teeth had recently been, and a bumblebee costume. Nonna had done her best, but there was only so much she could do with yellow and black spandex and a bee butt. Dad had found one of those headbands with springy antennai attached. I'd loved the antennae. The more enthusiastic my jetes, the more they bounced. Of course, I'd also jeted my flat-chested little self out of the top of my costume so many times that, during the actual recital itself,I'd barely moved at all, victim to the overwhelming modesty of the six-year-old. Now, looking at the little girl I'd been, I wished someone had told her not to worry so much, that within a year, that smooth, skinny, little bare shoulder would have turned into the bane of her existence. That she was absolutely perfect. "Nice stripes," Alex said casually, straightening up. That stung. It should't have-it was just a photo-but it did. I don't know what I'd expected him to say about the picture. It wasn't that. But then, I didn't expect the wide grin that spread across his face when he got a good look at mine, either. "Those," he announced, pointing to a photo of my mulleted dad leaning against the painted hood of his Mustang "are nice stripes. That-" he pointed to the me-bee- "Is seriously cute." "You're insane," I muttered, insanely pleased. "Yeah,well, tell me something I don't know." He took the bottle and plate from me. "I like knowing you have a little vanity in there somewhere." He stood, hands full, looking expectant and completely beautiful. The reality of the situation hadn't really been all that real before. Now, as I started up the stairs to my bedroom, Alex Bainbridge in tow, it hit me. I was leading a boy, this boy, into my very personal space. Then he started singing. "You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you. You're sooo vain....!" He had a pretty good voice. It was a truly excellent AM radio song. And just like that, I was officially In Deep

With this Humboldt brought together the external physical world with the internal world of the mind. Humboldt’s Cosmos was about the relationship between humankind and nature, and Thoreau placed himself firmly into this cosmos. At Walden Pond, he wrote, ‘I have a little world all to myself’ – his own sun, stars and moon. ‘Why should I feel lonely?’ he asked. ‘Is not our planet in the Milky Way?’ He was no more lonely than a flower or bumblebee in a meadow because like them he was part of nature. ‘Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?’ he asked in Walden.

Conservation is not something that should be left to others. It is easy to get depressed and despondent at the impending extinction of the polar bear or the tiger, or at the horrific progress of deforestation in the tropics. Perhaps governments or scientists or organisations such as WWF can do something to help address these situations, but as an individual it is very hard to know where to start – it all seems so remote and dauntingly complex. In contrast, conserving bumblebees is something anyone can do. A single lavender bush on a patio or in a window box will attract and feed bumblebees, even in the heart of a city.

It’s alright, Evelyn,” Finn said as he lit a cigarette and tossed his head back, letting out a heavy breath. “You don’t have to explain yourself, it’s okay to admit when you feel unsafe up here. You’ve got every right to. Besides, Dan’s a good fella’ and all, but … well, I watched him get startled by a bumblebee the other day.

I remembered the story of the bumblebee. Aerodynamically it is impossible for the bumblebee to fly. The body is too big for the small size of the wings, but apparently no one told the bumblebee that, so he flies! That's pretty much the story of setting goals. Nothing is impossible unless you believe it is." ~ 'Against All Odds: My Story

When my father saw my bloody elbows and knees, he tried to talk me out of flying. “People aren’t cut out for it,” he explained. “Our bodies are designed all wrong.” I didn’t believe him. He was the one who had told me about bumblebees, how their wings were too flimsy to support their fat bodies; yet, in the summer, they were everywhere, buzzing impossibly by.

Buzzing filled his ears, and he watched several bumblebees bounce from flower to flower. He found their hum soothing, and there, at the moment, felt he could watch them forever. He drank in the scent of flowers, the sweet warm air, the sunlight flittering through the dense leaves. He plucked a flower, studied it, then crushed it in his fist. I will know who I am.

Already - beetle, bumblebee, earthworm, spider - words are getting attached to things. In a few years, words will proliferate and swarm and carry off the pictures in the books she reads, black ants hauling off the butterfly. Eventually just words will be left. The things themselves will have been devoured. What a loss! All creation. To be stuck reading instead of looking.

Bizzy laughed at the very thought of bumblebees walking on their tiny feet from flower to flower! “We bumblebees have always been able to fly,” explained Bizzy. We fly because we have a job to do. We fly because we think we can. What about you, delicate dandelion?” Bizzy asked the flower, who had up until now had not spoken a single word. “What do you do? What is your purpose?

I'm doddering around like an old bumblebee, I'm all tangled up in the air, Ah sees it, I ain't tellin' things in the right order, what about it! You'll excuse me somewhat, kidding about my memories, digressing from rhyme to reason, jabbering away about my friends instead of showing you around!...Let's go! and let's keep going!...Let me show you around nicely...straying neither right nor left!...

There was a strong but not unpleasant smell- moist earth, decomposing leaf matter, new flowers beginning to catch the day's sun- and great fat bumblebees were busy already collecting pollen from a profusion of small pink and white blooms. Blackberries: Sadie surprised herself by dredging up the knowledge. They were blackberry flowers, and in a few months' time the bushes would be heavy with fruit.

Humans are not alone in creating false memories; pigeons, mice, and even bumblebees seem to have them.c That suggests false memories may just be a part of how we think—a by-product of our innate ability to group things together by theme. As Schacter says, memories are a tool to help animals predict the future by using the past. And to do that, we humans have become experts at quickly grouping things together and creating patterns.

From down here, it was obvious what had happened to Nettle. A huge cluster of pitcher plants was gathered right below the hill, gaping maws ready to swallow any animal that tumbled down it. Each one looked like a long green sack, tipped with stripes of dark pink around the open mouth at the top. Sundew had a collection of much smaller pitcher plants growing outside her nest to catch flies before they buzzed in and bothered her. She really didn’t like this big kind, though; it was super creepy to look at a giant pitcher plant and wonder whether there might be a dragon corpse decomposing inside it. Or, in this case, a dragon that was still very much alive and spitting mad. “GET ME OUT! GET ME OUT OF THIS THING!” Nettle shrieked. One of the plants wobbled as she slammed herself into the side. “Whoa,” Cricket said, landing beside Sundew. “She’s … in there? Why doesn’t she just fly out?” “Meeebomorp,” Bumblebee added, wide-eyed.

Well,” he sighed, squeezing my hand back. “I guess we were both running away in different ways.” “What do you mean?” Dad shook his head. “Your mother took a Mustang. I took a whiskey bottle.” He reached up and readjusted his glasses, an unconscious habit-he always did it when he was making a point. “I was so devastated by what your mother did to me that I forgot how horrible drinking is. I forgot to look on the bright side.” “Dad,” I said, “I don’t think there is a bright side to divorce. It’s a pretty sucky thing all around.” He nodded. “Maybe that’s true, but there are a lot of bright sides to my life. I have a job I like, a nice house in a good neighborhood, and a wonderful daughter.” I rolled my eyes. “Oh God,” I muttered. “Don’t go all Lifetime movie on me. Seriously.” “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling. “But I mean it. A lot of people would kill for my life, but I didn’t even consider that. I took it-and you-for granted. I’m so, so sorry for that, Bumblebee.

I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

A pine cone cannot fall from a tree unless God is involved. A bumblebee cannot pollenate a flower or sting your arm apart from the will of God. Money cannot enter or exit your bank account apart from the sovereignty of God. Little Ernest cannot be born or be buried in that grave just a half-mile from my house apart from God’s will. Legislation cannot be passed in this country or in any other apart from God’s sovereignty. You hold this book in your hands because God sovereignly allows you to hold this book in your hands. Everything is under His sovereign rule. Some of us believe that God is a bit like the president. He has a lot of power and authority, but there are checks and balances to limit Him. He is limited by our human choices, the events of the future, the wrongs of the past, or by those who do not believe in Him. Some of His legislations could be vetoed. His popularity can ebb and flow. But God is not like that at all. There are no limits to His rule and power.

I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen—I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Since the grasses are being parasitised, they grow less, leaving more room for other flowering plants. Pywell demonstrated that sowing rattle seed into an English meadow significantly boosted the diversity of flowers present by suppressing growth of grasses.

Before that, before it was ever a hotel at all, five full centuries ago, it was the home of a wealthy privateer who gave up raiding ships to study bees in the pastures outside Saint-Malo, scribbling in notebooks and eating honey straight from combs. The crests above the door lintels still have bumblebees carved into the oak; the ivy-covered fountain in the courtyard is shaped like a hive. Werner’s favorites are five faded frescoes on the ceilings of the grandest upper rooms, where bees as big as children float against blue backdrops, big lazy drones and workers with diaphanous wings—where, above a hexagonal bathtub, a single nine-foot-long queen, with multiple eyes and a golden-furred abdomen, curls across the ceiling.

Bumblebees detect the polarization of sunlight, invisible to uninstrumented humans; put vipers sense infrared radiation and detect temperature differences of 0.01C at a distance of half a meter; many insects can see ultraviolet light; some African freshwater fish generate a static electric field around themselves and sense intruders by slight perturbations induced in the field; dogs, sharks, and cicadas detect sounds wholly inaudible to humans; ordinary scorpions have micro--seismometers on their legs so they can detect in darkness the footsteps of a small insect a meter away; water scorpions sense their depth by measuring the hydrostatic pressure; a nubile female silkworm moth releases ten billionths of a gram of sex attractant per second, and draws to her every male for miles around; dolphins, whales, and bats use a kind of sonar for precision echo-location. The direction, range, and amplitude of sounds reflected by to echo-locating bats are systematically mapped onto adjacent areas of the bat brain. How does the bat perceive its echo-world? Carp and catfish have taste buds distributed over most of their bodies, as well as in their mouths; the nerves from all these sensors converge on massive sensory processing lobes in the brain, lobes unknown in other animals. how does a catfish view the world? What does it feel like to be inside its brain? There are reported cases in which a dog wags its tail and greets with joy a man it has never met before; he turns out to be the long-lost identical twin of the dog's "master", recognizable by his odor. What is the smell-world of a dog like? Magnetotactic bacteria contain within them tiny crystals of magnetite - an iron mineral known to early sailing ship navigators as lodenstone. The bacteria literally have internal compasses that align them along the Earth's magnetic field. The great churning dynamo of molten iron in the Earth's core - as far as we know, entirely unknown to uninstrumented humans - is a guiding reality for these microscopic beings. How does the Earth's magnetism feel to them? All these creatures may be automatons, or nearly so, but what astounding special powers they have, never granted to humans, or even to comic book superheroes. How different their view of the world must be, perceiving so much that we miss.

The jungle bristled with life. There were sloths, pumas, snakes, crocodiles; there were basilisk lizards that could run across the surface of water without sinking. In just a few hectares there lived as many woody plant species as in the whole of Europe. The diversity of the forest was reflected in the rich variety of field biologists who came there to study it. Some climbed trees and observed ants. Some set out at dawn every day to follow the monkeys. Some tracked the lightning that struck trees during tropical storms. Some spent their days suspended from a crane measuring ozone concentrations in the forest canopy. Some warmed up the soil using electrical elements to see how bacteria might respond to global heating. Some studied the way beetles navigate using the stars. Bumblebees, orchids, butterflies—there seemed to be no aspect of life in the forest that someone wasn’t observing.

I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, that some one may convey an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone, except in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to be two, but one is a mock sun. God is alone—but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.

A Song for the End of the World" On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it always should be. On the day the world ends Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas, A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn, Vegetable peddlers shout in the street And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island, The voice of a violin lasts in the air And leads into a starry night. And those who expected lightning and thunder Are disappointed. And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps Do not believe it is happening now. As long as the sun and the moon are above, As long as the bumblebee visits a rose, As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening now. Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: There will be no other end of the world, There will be no other end of the world.

Find something more productive and less nosy to do!” she shouted at the closest peeping LeafWing. He jumped and scurried away up the tree like a startled squirrel. “Oh my goodness,” Willow said. “Must you be so terrifying?” “It’s my special skill,” Sundew said. “And he deserved it.” “Did he, though?” Willow said thoughtfully. “Could you please keep being the one dragon I’m not furious at right now?” Sundew said. “Come on, everyone, let’s go. Willow, you lead the way for now, since you’re the most familiar with the jungle around your village.” Willow hesitated for a moment, as though she was thinking about pressing her point a bit more, but instead she nodded and headed into the trees, to Sundew’s relief. Sundew followed, with Cricket a half step behind her. The HiveWing was like a shadow, staying as close to Sundew as she could, although she kept twisting her head to stare at weird plants as they went by. “I’m familiar with this area, too,” Nettle complained from the rear. “I’ve been scouting in SapWing territory since before Mandrake was born. I know every kind of tree around here.” “Meh meh meh meh meh,” Bumblebee said in a hilariously similar tone of voice.

When you first begin this procedure, expect to face some difficulties. Your mind will wander off constantly, darting around like a bumblebee and zooming off on wild tangents. Try not to worry. The monkey-mind phenomenon is well known. It is something that every seasoned meditator has had to deal with. They have pushed through it one way or another, and so can you. When it happens, just note the fact that you have been thinking, daydreaming, worrying, or whatever. Gently, but firmly, without getting upset or judging yourself for straying, simply return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again the next time, and again, and again, and again. Somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and helpless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed. You are also no crazier than everybody else around you. The only real difference is that you have confronted the situation; they have not. So they still feel relatively comfortable. That does not mean that they are better off. Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to liberation. So don’t let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress. The very fact that you have looked at the problem straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of it.

«It's not easy to believe.» «I» she told him, «I can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.» «Really?» «I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in "War of the Worlds". I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kind of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.»

The mutualistic relationships between bees, the flowers that they pollinate, and the bacteria that live within the roots of those plants are at the heart of the functioning of a natural, species-rich meadow. The problem is that these relationships can be ruined by application of a sack of fertiliser, which allows the grasses to swamp the legumes and other wild flowers, swiftly resulting in a bright green, flowerless sward, with no legumes, no Rhizombium, and no bees. In the farming world this is known as "improved" grassland. In the 1940's Britain had in the region 15 million acres of flower rich grasslands. It is hard to get precise figures, but about 250,000 acres remain; a staggering loss of over 98 percent. Fertilisers were cheap, and successive governments were keen to persuade farmers to boost productivity, so ecosystems that had taken hundreds of years to develop were subject to swift and wholesale destruction.

If a man jumped as high as a louse (lice), he would jump over a football field. In Ancient Egypt, the average life expectancy was 19 years, but for those who survived childhood, the average life expectancy was 30 years for women and 34 years for men. The volume of the moon is equivalent to the volume of the water in the Pacific Ocean. After the 9/11 incident, the Queen of England authorized the guards to break their vow and sing America’s national anthem for Americans living in London. In 1985, lifeguards of New Orleans threw a pool party to celebrate zero drownings, however, a man drowned in that party. Men and women have different dreams. 70 percent of characters in men’s dreams are other men, whereas in women its 50 percent men and 50 percent women. Men also act more aggressively in dreams than women. A polar bear has a black skin. 2.84 percent of deaths are caused by intentional injuries (suicides, violence, war) while 3.15 percent are caused by diarrhea. On average people are more afraid of spiders than they are afraid of death. A bumblebee has hairs on its eyes, helping it collect the pollen. Mickey Mouse’s creator, Walt Disney feared mice. Citarum river in Indonesia is the dirtiest and most polluted river in the world. When George R R Martin saw Breaking Bad’s episode called “Ozymandias”, he called Walter White and said that he’d write up a character more monstrous than him. Maria Sharapova’s grunt is the loudest in the Tennis game and is often criticized for being a distraction. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for “kangaroo” translates literally to “bag rat”. The first product to have a barcode was a chewing gum Wrigley. Chambarakat dam in Iraq is considered the most dangerous dam in the world as it is built upon uneven base of gypsum that can cause more than 500,000 casualties, if broken. Matt Urban was an American Lieutenant Colonel who was nicknamed “The Ghost” by Germans because he always used to come back from wounds that would kill normal people.

Notice the granite slab you’re passing under with the lettering engraved by GT’s high-precision explosive forming process. They said nobody could work natural stone explosively so we went ahead and did it, thus bearing out the company motto at the head of the list.” A dropout near Stal moved lips in an audible whisper as he struggled to interpret the obliquely viewed writing. “Underneath are listed prime examples of human shortsightedness, like you’ll see it’s impossible for men to breathe at over thirty miles an hour, and a bumblebee cannot possibly fly, and interplanetary spaces are God’s quarantine regulations. Try telling the folk at Moonbase Zero about that!” A few sycophantic laughs. Several places ahead of Stal the Divine Daughter crossed herself at the Name. “Why is it so sheeting cold in here?” yelled someone up the front near the guide. “If you were wearing GT’s new Polyclime fabrics, like me, you wouldn’t feel it,” the guide responded promptly. Drecky plantees, yet. How much of this crowd are GT staff members hired by government order and kept hanging about on makeweight jobs for want of anything better to do? “But that cues me in to another prime instance of how wrong can you be? Seventy or eighty years back they were saying to build a computer to match a human brain would take a skyscraper to house it and Niagara Falls to cool it. Well, that’s not up on the slab there because they were only half wrong about the cooling bit—in fact Niagara Falls wouldn’t do, it’s not cold enough. We use liquid helium by the ton load. But they were sheeting wrong about the skyscraper. Spread around this balcony and I’ll show you why.” Passive, the hundred and nine filed around a horseshoe gallery overlooking the chill sliced-egg volume of the vault. Below on the main floor identical-looking men and women came and went, occasionally glancing upwards with an air of incuriosity. Resentful, another score or so of the hundred and nine decided they weren’t going to be interested no matter what.

I can believe that things are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

I," she told him, "can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe." "Really?" "I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in this universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She stopped, out of breath. Shadow almost took his hands off the wheel to applaud.