Elephants Cute Quotes

Left to their own devices, human bodies rot, decompose, come apart, and sink gloriously back into the earth from whence they came. Using embalming and heavy protective caskets to stop this process is a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable, and demonstrates our clear terror of decomposition. The death industry markets caskets and embalming under the rubric of helping bodies look “natural,” but our current death customs are as natural as training majestic creatures like bears and elephants to dance in cute little outfits, or erecting replicas of the Eiffel Tower and Venetian canals in the middle of the harsh American desert.

You were cute in a tutu.” Desiree scowled. “Why don’t you ever forget shit?” She turned on her heel without waiting for an answer. “Should’ve been an elephant instead of a leopard.

Is that who you are, that vaguely criminal face on your ID card, its soul snatched by the government camera as the guillotine shutter fell—or maybe just left behind with your heart, at the Stage Door Canteen, where they’re counting the night’s take, the NAAFI girls, the girls named Eileen, carefully sorting into refrigerated compartments the rubbery maroon organs with their yellow garnishes of fat—oh Linda come here feel this one, put your finger down in the ventricle here, isn’t it swoony, it’s still going. . . . Everybody you don’t suspect is in on this, everybody but you: the chaplain, the doctor, your mother hoping to hang that Gold Star, the vapid soprano last night on the Home Service programme, let’s not forget Mr. Noel Coward so stylish and cute about death and the afterlife, packing them into the Duchess for the fourth year running, the lads in Hollywood telling us how grand it all is over here, how much fun, Walt Disney causing Dumbo the elephant to clutch to that feather like how many carcasses under the snow tonight among the white-painted tanks, how many hands each frozen around a Miraculous Medal, lucky piece of worn bone, half-dollar with the grinning sun peering up under Liberty’s wispy gown, clutching, dumb, when the 88 fell—what do you think, it’s a children’s story?

Of course, Jules was not a wolf. She was an elephant. But Jules was a very young toy and she had never been to school to learn the difference.

Red Elephant" When am I supposed to say so long? When am I supposed to say so long? When I fall in love 'fore dusk is dawn When you take my hand across the lawn With the eyes so sweet they're like a fawn Red elephant is wet & long... How am I supposed to wash you off? Rungs of bad poems I've hacked & coughed But I have to spare a breath for you Which I'll take, before we make anew Our hearts will take a stroll for two Our feet will take the avenue & Walk in unison, so cute Red elephant is turning blue Why am I here when you're over there? Let's meet at the fountains In Dundas Square Who am I supposed to be with you? I'll wait 'til you say & pretend I knew Because if it's true that walls can talk How mine would brag of tears I've sobbed When thinking of the way we walked Along the paths of sideway chalk Forever under ticking clock Where you & I are free to flock What can I write when I know it's wrong? Slapping my knee to my own damn song Where can we go when the sinking stops? To the pit of my chest As it drops and drops... Put your head upon my chest, it breathes & My fingers through your hair they weave & Your shoulders are the perfect sea In which I get lost invariably Oh the elephant is up to sea If it meets the peach fish underneath & When I am you and you are me We are stirred as spoons in lover's tea

You are amazing," she said. "And you make a very handsome elephant.

I like animals that can kill me. I don’t have a cat or a dog or anything — I’m not interested in animals because they’re cute; I’m interested in animals that can kill me. My interests are with bears, tigers, lions, rhinos, elephants, hippos, things like that. I’m obsessed with big-game animals. Urban society, like New York, would be better if they released like 25 panthers in town. It would humble humanity. So when I’m walking home from the bar, I would always have to think to myself, 'There could be a panther around here.

By acknowledging how ridiculous something is, people know what’s real again. We need those refreshers. It’s amazing how out of touch people can be when pretending there’s no elephant in the room. People must be elephant finders. But not of those big, monstrous, disgusting elephants, but the cute tiny ones in the room that we were each privately suspecting.

Worse, the whole house is filling up with elephants. There's the do-I-still-have-amnesia elephant, which is standing next to the am-I-still-fired elephant in front of the do-I-need-to-be-here-at-all elephant. And those three are giving the side-eye to the mostly unrelated how're-things-with-Jonathan-and-his-dad elephant, and that's one hell of an elephant,, being much older, with much nastier tusks, and I don't really want to go near it agian. And all those elephants are sort of sitting on top of this great big, massive elephant called also-there-was-that-one-time-I-kissed-you-and-I-liked-it. I always thought elephants were cute. But I'm going right off them.

Strictly as a matter of taste, I do not like children. Small animals are adorable in the way my biology programs me to find large-eyed, small-skulled mammals adorable, and they can grow up into formidable or admirable creatures--cubs become bears, calves become elephants, fledglings become eagles. Babies lack language, which makes me bored and impatient, then turn into children, whose saccharine vocal emissions grate my nerves, and then turn into adult humans, the most monstrous of all animals.

THE MOTIVATION BEHIND behavior rarely includes the goals for which it evolved. These goals stay behind the veil of evolution. We evolved nurturant tendencies, for example, to raise our own biological children, but a cute puppy triggers these tendencies just as well. Whereas reproduction is the evolutionary goal of nurturance, it isn’t part of its motivation. After a mother dies, other adult primates often take care of her weaned juvenile. Humans, too, adopt on a large scale, often going through hellish bureaucratic procedures to add children to their families. Stranger yet is cross-species adoption, such as by Pea, a rescued ostrich at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya. Pea was beloved by all orphaned elephant calves at the trust and took special care of a baby named Jotto, who’d stay by her side and sleep with his head on her soft feathered body. The maternal instinct is remarkably generous.38 Some biological purists call such behavior a “mistake.” If adaptive goals are the measure, Pea was making a colossal error. As soon as we move from biology to psychology, however, the perspective changes. Our impulse to take care of vulnerable young is real and overwhelming even outside the family. Similarly, when human volunteers push a stranded whale back into the ocean, they employ empathic impulses that, I can assure you, didn’t evolve to take care of marine mammals. Human empathy arose for the sake of family and friends. But once a capacity exists, it takes on a life of its own. Rather than calling the saving of a whale a mistake, we should be glad that empathy isn’t tied down by what evolution intended it for. This is what makes our behavior as rich as it is. This line of thought can also be applied to sex.

The natives started their trek to the village and the bus followed slowly. No one saw any lions, but Butubu pointed out graceful elands and kudus. They resembled American deer but their horns were quite different. Those of the elands were long and straight and pointed slightly backwards. The kudus’ rose straight up from the forehead and curved in such a way that from a distance they resembled snakes. Suddenly Butubu stopped the bus. “Look!” he said, pointing toward a tree-shaded area. “There’s a family of hyrax. In Africa we call them dassies.‘” “Aren’t they cute?” Bess exclaimed. “Are they some kind of rabbit?” “No,” Butubu replied. “If you will look closely, you will see that they have no tails. People used to think they belonged to the rat family. But scientists made a study of their bodies and say their nearest relatives are the elephants.” “Hard to believe,” said Burt. “Think of a rabbit-sized elephant!” The small, dark-brown animals were sunning themselves on an outcropping of rocks. Three babies were hopping about their mother. Butubu explained that they were among the most interesting African animals. “The babies start walking around within a few minutes of their birth and after the first day they’re on their own. They return to the mother only long enough to be fed, but they start eating greens very quickly.” Butubu drove on but continued to talk about the dassies. “There is an amusing folk tale about these little animals. It was said that in the days when the earth was first formed and animals were being put on it, the weather was cold and rainy. ”When all the animals were called to a certain spot to be given tails, the dassie did not want to go. As other kinds passed him, he begged them to bring him back a tail.“ Nancy laughed. “But none of them did.” “That is right,” Butubu answered. “And so to this day they have no tails that they can use to switch flies.” Everyone in the bus thanked him for relating the charming little legend, then looked out the windows. They were approaching a village of grass-roofed huts. The small homes were built in a semicircle.

Even when behaviors are clearly stress-related, they can be difficult to interpret. Mel Richardson was once asked to examine a tree kangaroo at the San Antonio Zoo that the keepers said was acting bizarrely. With the ears of a teddy bear, the rounded chub of a koala, and the tail of a fuzzy monkey, tree kangaroos are very cute. But this female was acting vicious. She was attacking her babies, and the keepers had no idea why. Mel went to check on her. Sure enough, as soon as he approached, the kangaroo ran to her babies and started hitting and clawing at them with her paws. He stepped back, and she stopped. He walked forward, and she ran at the babies again. “I realized,” said Mel, “that she wasn’t viciously attacking her babies at all. She was trying to pick them up off the floor, but her little paws weren’t meant for that. In her native Australia and Papua New Guinea her babies never would have been on the ground. Her whole family would have been up in the trees.” The mother kangaroo wanted to move the babies away from the humans. What looked like abnormal attacks on her young were actually her way of trying to protect them. Her behavior wasn’t mental illness at all but a response to the stress of being a mother in an unnatural environment. After the keepers redesigned the kangaroos’ cage so that more of it was elevated and farther from the door, she relaxed and stopped hitting her babies. Mel explained, “As flippant as it might sound, the truth is that in order to know what’s abnormal, you must first know what’s normal. In this case in order to determine pathology, I had to understand the animal’s psychology. It’s pretty easy for people to get this wrong.

Miles nodded, his head bobbing loosely on his neck. “Yeah. Ellie and I have been besties forever.” Then he frowned. “Wait. I can’t call you Ellie anymore. Sorry, Ellie.” The hair on the back of my neck prickled. Elise had told me not to call her Ellie. I’d wondered why at the time but had dropped it. Miles knew, though. He knew something about her I didn’t. Elise waved him off. “It’s fine.” Sam turned to her. “Wait, what’s wrong with Ellie? It’s a cute nickname.” Miles tried to snap his fingers, but when he couldn’t, he pointed at her. “Right? It is a cute nickname, but I had to go ruin it. I ruin everything.” His head dropped and Elise reached for him, but he flung her hand off and stumbled to his feet. Elliot and I exchanged a glance. He lifted a shoulder. Neither of us understood what was going on, but my gut told me it wasn’t good. My gut told me to shut my brother up before he continued his path of destruction. I got to my feet, but Miles was already ranting. “I thought it would be funny, you know?” He shook his head. “Maybe I didn’t think that. Maybe I didn’t think at all. I saw you on the first day of school. You had a sparkly headband on, and you were laughing with friends. Friends, Lisie. You had friends, but I was supposed to be looking out for you when I had no one.” He was staring right at Elise, red-faced, his chest heaving. “So, I called you that. Ellie the Elephant, and they laughed. Then I had friends. People laughed with me, they wanted to be around me.” My mouth fell open, trying to wrap my head around what my brother was saying. Elliot’s chair scraped back. He circled the table to get to Elise, who looked like a deer caught in headlights. She was frozen, eyes wide, watching my brother. We all were.