Bears Quotes

“I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3:

ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever.

And then comes literature's most famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear." All well and good, but here's the way I would handle it:

BERTIE: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves?
JEEVES: No, Sir.
BERTIE: Then why is your tummy rumbling?
JEEVES: Pardon me, Sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us.
BERTIE: Animal? What animal?
JEEVES: A bear, Sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner.
BERTIE (as narrator): I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak and it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult for me to find a formula. "Advise me, Jeeves," I yipped. "What do I do for the best?"
JEEVES: I fancy it might be judicious if you were to make an exit, Sir.
BERTIE (narrator): No sooner s. than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed across country by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off Roger Bannister's mile.

Who can say which method is superior?"

(As reproduced in Plum, Shakespeare and the Cat Chap )”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Over Seventy: An Autobiography with Digressions

“I think he just loved being with the bears because they didn't make him feel bad. I get it too. When he was with the bears, they didn't care that he was kind of weird, or that he'd gotten into trouble for drinking too much and using drugs(which apparently he did a lot of). They didn't ask him a bunch of stupid questions about how he felt, or why he did what he did. They just let him be who he was.”
― Michael Thomas Ford, Suicide Notes

“Bears," I muttered, adding a new fear to the pile. "That would be just her luck, wouldn't it? Stray bear in town. OF course it would head straight for Bella.”
― Stephenie Meyer

“Always respect Mother Nature. Especially when she weighs 400 pounds and is guarding her baby.”
― James Rollins, Ice Hunt

“A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.”
― Aime Cesaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

“Some days you go bear hunting and you get eaten. Some days you come home with a nice rug to roll around on, and bear steaks. What they don't tell you as a kid is that sometimes you get the rug and steaks, but you also get some nice scars to go with them. As a child you don't understand that you can win, but that's it's not always worth the price. Once you understand and accept that possibility you become a real grown up, and the world becomes a much more serious place. Not less fun, but once you realize what can go wrong, it's a lot scarier to go hunting "bears".”
― Laurell K. Hamilton

“Naturally the villagers blamed bears. No one had ever seen a bear in Gavaldon, but this made them more determined to find one. Four years later, when two more children vanished, the villagers admitted they should have been more specific and declared black bears the culprit, bears so black they blended with the night. But when children continued to disappear every four years, the village shifted their attention to burrowing bears, then phantom bears, then bears in disguise. . . Until it became clear it wasn't it wasn't bears at all.”
― Soman Chainani, The School for Good and Evil

“Haven't you ever thought of living
unconsciously like bears, sniffing the earth,
close to pears and the mossy dark,
far from human voices and fire?

- On İbrahim Balaban's Painting "Spring"”
― Nâzım Hikmet, Poems of Nazım Hikmet

“And now, for something completely the same:

Wasted time and wasted breath,
's what I'll make, until my death.
Helping people 'd be as good,
but I wouldn't, if I could.

For the few that help deserve,
have no need, or not the nerve,
help from strangers to accept,
plus from mine a few have wept.

Wept from joy, or from despair,
or just from my vengeful stare.
Ways I have, to look at stupid,
make them see I am not Cupid.

Make them see they are in error,
for of truth I am a bearer.
Most decide I'm just a bear,
mauling at them, - like I care.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

“And maybe... you are a little fat bear cub with no wings, and no feathers.”
― Else Holmelund Minarik

“Are you scared of going in to see the raghnaid [the council]?” asked a gray female pup.
“Are you cag mag [crazy]? If a bear was his Milk Giver, you think he’s scared of the raghnaid?”
― Kathryn Lasky, Shadow Wolf

“He admired bears because everyone was afraid to disturb them while they slept and fish were so in love with bears that they jumper right into their mouths. He ate meat and never felt bad about it unless he saw how the animal was slaughtered or if the meat was not cooked properly but he thought thrice about killing bus.”
― Robb Todd

“The morning was bright and propitious. Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed to cherish unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. ("The Legend Of Monte Del Diablo").”
― Bret Harte

“But three cheers for Alaska, they've got 24-hour hot fucking bear delivery.
Note to self: Nuke Alaska.”
― Mykle Hansen, HELP! A Bear is Eating Me!

“With all the global warming going around nowadays, it would only take the stubbornness of a mule and the patience of a sitting duck to achieve what no man has ever done before – namely melt the ice in a wax figure’s beaten heart that was chopped off and hidden 50 meters under the polar ice caps in Alaska, to protect it from feeling.”
― Will Advise, Nothing is here...

“Oh well, bears will be bears,” said Mr Brown.”
― Michael Bond, More About Paddington

“Somehow each of the three bears figured out exactly what was comfortable for them. And yet despite the obvious differences, they did not try to impose their preferences on the rest of the family. And if we can take a lesson from that, maybe that would make our society a bit more bearable.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“As we know, bears hibernate in caves. They appear almost lifeless. This is an analog to the practices of ancient shamans, and to Sufis who practice the forty-day halvet (retreat), in which the Shaman would enter a cave, have an experience of dying, explore the spiritual realms, and then is reborn as the Initiate or Master (just as the bear is reborn each spring as it “wakes up” and leaves its cave).”
― Laurence Galian, The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis

“Will there be bears?"
"There will be two: white bears, as soft and heavy as snow, as fell as January, one beyond the other, like the mountains on the edge of Thule. They have waked. There is old fire in their bellies; yellow moonlight in their seeking eyes; blood only in their minds.”
― Greer Gilman, Exit, Pursued by a Bear

“Or was it in fact displaying the predatory patience for which polar bears are famed, lying quietly in anticipation of the moment when one of us would lean too far forward and into striking distance?”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“But at the other end of the spectrum, they continued, are four 'ice-obligate' species that depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting, breeding, and resting, and for which future prospects are dim indeed. They listed the walrus as one of those species; bearded and ringed seals were two of the other three ... the fourth member of the afore-mentioned 'ice-obligate' club, is, of course, the polar bear.”
― Kieran Mulvaney, The Great White Bear: A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear

“Even the two moose were surprised. It was almost as cold as Iceland, but not quite. They decided to occupy the last hour on deck knitting hats and scarves for Snugs, Carla, and James. Clickety-click went their knitting needle antlers...”
― Suzy Davies, Snugs The Snow Bear

“Long-limbed creatures like shards of ice given form stalked past, tall enough to plant the cobalt-and-silver banners atop various tents; wagons were hauled by sure-footed reindeer and lumbering white bears in ornate armour, some so keenly aware when they ambled by that I wouldn't have been surprised if they could talk. White foxes scuttled about underfoot, bearing what looked to be messages strapped to their little embroidered vests.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin

“The Cycle's Whisper by Stewart Stafford

A crisp mountain breeze,
Whispers on verdant meadows,
In the starlings' murmuration,
Bodies flutter as the wind blows.

River salmon leap upstream,
To the places of their siring,
All the tests of life in the flesh,
With thrashing bodies expiring.

Starving bears lie in wait to
Shorten the fading quest,
Or a moribund swim home,
To a watery boneyard's rest.

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

“Just before noon one sunny summer’s day, three bears were returning home from their morning wander. They lived in a sturdy wooden cabin, unpretentious and rustic. Approaching the house he’d built with his own paws, Daddy Bear felt a sense of satisfaction. The residence blended in with the forest rather than standing out from it. All the construction materials had been ethically sourced. The wood came from trees felled by storms. A thick layer of turf on the roof provided insulation in winter and kept the cabin cool in summer. In addition to being practical, the turf looked pretty. Its grass sprouted straight up like hair jutting from a mythic head. A little too big to be quaint, yet a little too small to be showoffish, the house was just right. And just right was the way Daddy Bear liked things.”
― Mark Rice, The Cabin Incident

“We should probably consider locking the door from time to time,” Eli pointed out with a shrug, looking more curious than angry, deeply inhaling the enticing scent. “That is a delicious smelling intruder.”
― Colette Rhodes, Gilded Mess

“Whenever people had asked me which bear was my favorite, I had dithered and hedged. "I like them all equally," I would say, diplomatically. Sun bears were cute with lolling tongues. Grizzlies were emblematic of the American wilderness. And who could pass up the panda? What a jolly fellow. That, however, was all a lie. My favorite bear was unequivocally the polar bear.”
― Gloria Dickie, Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future

“On my birthday, Old Bear gives me my own instrument.
"Now you can play with your friends," he says.
"You can fill the sky with beautiful music.”
― Nick Maland, We Light Up the Sky with Music!

“It went rooting around in the mind it shared with Daniel much as it had the seat cushion and was astonished at how many siblings he could lay claim to. Surely, the bear asked, Daniel could spare at least one? It did not have to be a very large one.”
― Kelly Link, The Book of Love

“How nice it is to be us, Big Bear thought. Two brown bears in two fine boats sailing on a blue, blue lake.
And he was happy.”
― Eve Bunting, Big Bear's Big Boat