The Owl and the Nightingale Quotes

“Through pity, then, I can't resist
delivering a song of bliss
when witnessing the painful trace
that love leaves in a young girl's face.
I try to teach them, through my song,
love of that kind will not last long,
because, just as my song relents,
love rarely stays when it descends
on children's hearts, but meets its death
the way that warmth fades on our breath.”
― Simon Armitage, The Owl and the Nightingale

“Who speaks well ... fights well,' goes the song;
she'd wage war with her voice instead.
'To fight well, speak well,' Alfred said.”
― Simon Armitage, The Owl and the Nightingale

“If Beauty called it didn't stay,
& Virtue looked the other way.
Another charge that I will file:
your habits, like your looks, are vile.”
― Simon Armitage, The Owl and the Nightingale

“The wise have noted more than once
that he who argues with a dunce
might just as well compare his jaw
against an oven's yawning door.
And now a saying comes to mind,
a proverb that King Alfred coined:
"Be careful not to waste your life
where strife & quarrelling are rife;
keep well away from fractious fools.”
― Simon Armitage, The Owl and the Nightingale