Air Quote by Eudora Welty

“the smell of resin filled the air. A thrush was singing somewhere. Late harebells were thick among the grass, and small blue butterflies moved…

— Mary Stewart

“They looked like butterflies, except that they had the long, pointed beaks of hummingbirds, and they seemed to be made out of darkness and…

— Lauren Oliver

“There were rockets like a flock of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark smoke: their leaves…

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Night was falling. Birds were singing. Birds were, it occurred to me to say, enacting a frantic celebration of day's end. They were manifesting…

— George Saunders

“The last rain had come at the beginning of April and now, at the first of June, all but the hardiest mosquitoes had left…

— Jane Hamilton

“He was still wide awake when the morning came - the light changed imperceptibly underground, with the glowtrees flaring up brightly, and the shimmer…

— Ekaterina Sedia

Why do birds sing in the morning? It's the triumphant shout: 'We got through another night!'

— Enid Bagnold

“In the quarter where the sun should have appeared, the sky was covered by a strange reddish cloud, like smoke, like hot ashes, like…

— Alejo Carpentier

I meant to do my work today But a brown bird sang in the apple tree And a butterfly flitted across the field And…

— Richard Le Gallienne

They passed out of the shade beneath the eaves and flew into sunglare and silence and it was an action she only partly saw,…

— Don DeLillo

“The horses sped through the dense autumn grass, their hooves kicking up moths in various colors: pinks, oranges, whites, blues. There were also green,…

— Jiang Rong

And they were quiet but their blood and nerves and butterflies were not—they were rampantly alive, rushing and thrumming in a wild and perfect…

— Laini Taylor