Magpie Quotes

“A magpie can be happy or sad: sometimes so happy that he sits on a high, high gum tree and rolls the sunrise around in his throat like beads of pink sunlight; and sometimes so sad that you would expect the tears to drip off his beak.
This magpie was like that.”
― Colin Thiele, Magpie Island

“A magpie, seeing some light-colored object conspicuous on the empty slope, flew closer to look. but all that lay there was a splintered peg and a twisted length of wire.”
― Richard Adams, Watership Down

“The colour of the magpie, her father was saying, was symbolic of creation. The void, the mystery of that which had not yet taken form. Black and white, he said. Presence and absence.”
― Kate Mosse, The Taxidermist's Daughter

“She blushed and I smiled when we saw the Magpie look at us while we kissed below the Acacia tree!”
― Avijeet Das

“Suburbia Knocks by Stewart Stafford

Covert dawn's surreptitious light,
A magpie sentry's warning song,
Swooping, scanning silent streets,
Cackling danger all night long.

Metallic cross of crucified clothes,
A choir of colours in the breeze,
Waterboarded by lashing rain,
Made them suffer incrementally.

One knock for no, two knocks for yes,
One and a half for uncertainty,
Three knocks for drinks and company,
The rite of suburban courtesy.

37 years ago, down at number 37,
Came the first and last royal visit,
Dizzying anticipation from first light,
Fading fairytale in a curtsying gibbet.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Its wings flicker white, and in the brief soar between roof and pump, the sun catches in its feathers, revealing rainbows floating atop the black and blue fibers. The colors roll down its body like the muscle in a great predator’s shoulders, and yet the lift of its wings and kite-like flicker of its long tail are lighter than air.”
― Addison Lane, Blackpines: The Magpie Witch: The North Star in Eclipse