Insects Quotes

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“The poets say some moths will do anything out of love for a flame
[...]
The moth takes off again, and we both step back, because he's circling at eye level now and seems to have lost rudder control, smacking into the wall on each round. He circles lower and lower, spinning around the candle in tighter revolutions, like a soap sud over an open drain. A few times he seems to touch the flame, but dances off unhurt.
Then he ignites like a ball of hair, curling into an oily puff of fumes with a hiss. The candle flame flickers and dims for a moment, then burns as bright as before.
Moth Smoke Lingers.”
― Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke

“A stray fact: insects are not drawn to candle flames, they are drawn to the light on the far side of the flame, they go into the flame and sizzle to nothingness because they're so eager to get to the light on the other side.”
― Michael Cunningham, By Nightfall

“Hip," I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell's---my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons, foaming at the mouth and running at pigeons.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“I'll stop eating steak when you stop killing spiders." Absurdity: comparing cows to spiders. Arachnids are pure evil. They're like a cigarette manufacturer or a terrorist. They're organized religion on eight legs.”
― Davey Havok, Pop Kids

“I've just been bitten on the neck by a vampire... mosquito. Does that mean that when the night comes I will rise and be annoying?”
― Vera Nazarian

“We’re organisms; we’re conceived, we’re born, we live, we die, and we decay. But as we decay we feed the world of the living: plants and bugs and bacteria.”
― Bill Bass, Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales

“In summer the empire of insects spreads.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“And all the insects ceased in honor of the moon.”
― Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler

“It is amazing what a lot of insect life goes on under your nose when you have got it an inch from the earth. I suppose it goes on in any case, but if you are proceeding on your stomach, dragging your body along by your fingernails, entomology presents itself very forcibly as a thoroughly justified science.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night

“Despite its dark veins, the transparency of dragonfly’s wings assures me of a pure, innocent world”
― Munia Khan

“Insects all business all the time.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

“I know that you are a mere flea! I know that you need only be squashed to be done away with! I know that I have fought this same battle a thousand thousand times before...but, perhaps this time I can crush you like the insect you are!”
― Marv Wolfman, Fantastic Four: In Search of Galactus

“Insect life was so loud that when you parked the car and got out it sounded as if you had suddenly tuned into a radio frequency from another planet.”
― David Samuels

“Life is but a flash of time, a momentous flicker-- in the life that we know and space we live in on earth.© VW”
― Virginia Wright, Buzzzzzzzz...: What Honeybees Do

“Some big insect flew in and began walking on the table. I don’t know what insect it was, but it was brown, shining, and rich in structures. In the city the big universal chain of insects gets thin, but where there’s a leaf or two it’ll be represented.”
― Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

“Organic foods are richer in nutrients. This means they improve satiety and naturally help regulate body weight…Plants produce antioxidants to protect themselves from pests like insects and to withstand harsh weather. When they’re treated with chemicals such as pesticides, they don’t need to produce as much of their own natural defenses, so the levels are lower.” (p.203)”
― Cynthia Sass, Cinch! Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds, and Lose Inches

“Dragonflies say "mystery" to me.”
― Cindy Crosby, Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History

“Bees make honey while the sun shines.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“However, there is now a sizable body of experimental work documenting flexible learning capabilities in insects that, in some cases, rival those found in mammals and birds. These cognitive abilities range from conditional discrimination and concept formation to spatial cognition, planning, causal reasoning, and social learning. Indeed, a review of the insect cognition literature leaves one with the impression that bees are likely to outperform birds and mammals on many quintessential cognitive tasks, such as matching-to-sample discriminations and the cross-modal transfer of learned concepts - often necessitating fewer trails for success than is necessary to train up similar abilities in mammals (including primates!).”
― Russell Powell, Contingency and Convergence: Toward a Cosmic Biology of Body and Mind

“Dragonflies hover on an abundance of air.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Mosquitoes took over Florida after hurricane Ian.”
― Steven Magee

“Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

“...Bilgimiz arttıkça, birbirimize daha çok zarar verebileceğiz. İnsanoğulları eğer birbirlerine karşı duydukları garez dolayısıyla öfkelerine kapılıp da, böceklerin ve mikroorganizmaların yardımına başvurmaya kalkışırsa -ki, bir büyük savaş daha çıkarsa böyle yapacakları muhakkaktır- o savaşın biricik galibi olarak ayakta sadece böceklerin kalması hiç de olanak dışı değildir. Kosmos açısından bakıldığında belki de buna üzülmemek gerekir; ama bir insan olarak, hemcinslerim hesabına göğüs ge- çirmekten kendimi alamıyorum...”
― Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

“I'm inspired by how dragonflies are both tough and fragile; fierce and mild.”
― Cindy Crosby, Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History

“There are so many reasons to fall in love with dragonflies. They have intriguing stories to tell us. They make our world a more beautiful place. And they are scrappy survivors.”
― Cindy Crosby, Chasing Dragonflies: A Natural, Cultural, and Personal History

“Dead and distressed flying insects are the early warning sign that something is wrong with environmental radiation.”
― Steven Magee

“I Once Was A Bee by Stewart Stafford

I once was a bee,
All striped and dorky,
I got crushed underfoot,
By Amber Heard's Yorkie.

It mashed my wings,
I never sought money,
Even when it made me,
Poop out some honey.

As I flew to Bee Heaven,
In a mystical fog,
She made such a fuss,
Of that murdering dog.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Sounds fell all about me; I vibrated like still water ruffled by wind. Cicadas were out in full force...I had heard them begin at twilight and was struck with the way they actually do "start up," like an out of practice orchestra, creaking and grinding and all out of synch. The frogs added their unlocatable notes, which always seem to me to be so arbitrary and anarchistic, and crickets piped in, calling their own tune which they have been calling since the time of Pliny..”
― Annie Dillard

“Everyone loves pill-bugs. They're the insect version of hedgehogs.”
― Darcie Little Badger, Elatsoe