20 Lizard Quotes About The Ancient Adaptable Reptiles
Timeless and resilient, lizards navigate the wild, impressing us with their survival skills. For ages, they have also weaved through our culture and language, symbolizing everything from primal instincts to transformative wisdom. To explore the depths of what these reptiles represent, browse through our collection of lizard quotes.
Quick links to our selection of lizard quotes:
Lizard Quotes In The Wild And Homes
With their diversity and widespread habitats, Lizards play pivotal roles in nature. These reptiles range from vibrant greens to earthy browns, skillfully blending into dense jungles or rocky deserts. They act as predator and prey, maintaining a delicate balance of the food chain. While many of us appreciate these creatures and even care for them as pets, they have been, regrettably, exploited in the fashion industry for their skins.
These are some quotes describing our relationship with these reptiles. For more information about them, check out our articles on different facts about lizard species like komodo dragons, iguanas, and geckos.
"It makes my skin crawl to think about the violent ways snakes, lizards, alligators and other exotic creatures are raised and killed for boots, bags and belts."
- Kelly Brook
"I have a pet lizard named Puff, five goldfish - named Pinky, Brain, Jowels, Pearl and Sandy, an oscar fish named Chef, two pacus, an albino African frog named Whitey, a bonsai tree, four Venus flytraps, a fruit fly farm and sea monkeys."
- Chris Pratt
"I have taxidermy pets that are very close to me. I have a little lizard with a head that comes on and off that I call Nicolas Cage because his face is long. And I have a big diamondback rattlesnake called Rufus, and I have some rats in jars and stuff."
- Mackenzie Davis
Quotes Describing Lizard Brain
The "'lizard brain"' concept comes from the triune brain theory by neuroscientist Paul MacLean in the 1960s. It highlights our primal brain involved in basic survival instincts like aggression and dominance. Also known as the reptilian brain, it explains our fight-or-flight reactions, offering a glimpse into our psychological evolution and how these instincts still play a part in our modern lives.
Check out how American art critic Dave Hickey used this concept in his quotes below.
"In my experience, you always think you know what you're doing; you always think you can explain, but you always discover, years later, that you didn't and you couldn't. This leads me to suspect that the principal function of human reason is to rationalize what your lizard brain demands of you."
- Dave Hickey
"Art and writing come from somewhere down around the lizard brain. It's a much more peculiar activity than we like to think it is. The problems arise when we try to domesticate the practice, to pretend that it's a normal human activity and that ‘everybody's creative.’ They're not."
- Dave Hickey
Other Metaphorical Quotes About Lizard King And More
Lizards inspire many metaphors, reflecting on life's various facets. For example, rock singer Jim Morrison's "Lizard King" persona suggests access to a primal power. However, in an interview, he stated it was just a catchy nickname.
Meanwhile, novelist Ken Kesey urges us to actively embrace life's joys, comparing a passive existence to a lizard merely basking in the sun without gratitude. If you want to decipher metaphors on your own, check the other quotes below.
"I am the Lizard King. I can do anything!"
- Jim Morrison
"You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you."
- Ken Kesey
"And there's nothing wrong with being a lizard either. Unless you were born to be a hawk."
- Leigh Bardugo
"Democracy is all about not electing the wrong man-eating lizard."
- Douglas Adams
"To write a poem is like trying to catch a lizard without its tail falling off."
- Lawrence Durrell
"I never take any notice of reviews - unless a critic has thought up some new way of describing me. That old one about my lizard eyes and anteater nose and the way I sleep my way through pictures is so hackneyed now."
- Robert Mitchum
"When you are in a creative or appreciative zone, you literally have no access to your inner lizard, to that fear-based, non creative, shrieking little beasty who's so afraid you're going to be a bag lady."
- Martha Beck
"The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did."
- Chinua Achebe
"Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way of the best happiness."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Lizard Quotes In Literature And Pop Culture
Lizards leap from nature into our books and screens, symbolizing mystery and, often, the uncanny. Shakespeare's potion in "Macbeth" uses a lizard's leg to conjure images of dark magic. Similarly, Spielberg's "Lost World" stirs up primal fears, with director Oliver Stone suggesting giant lizards evoke age-old terrors of predators.
Check other lizard imagery stirring imagination in the following quotes.
"Fear may very well be a caveman fear of the predator, of the giant lizard chasing them - maybe that's what Steven Spielberg connects with so well in Lost World."
- Oliver Stone
"Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
- William Shakespeare
"As a child I drew objects that caught my eye outside the window of my room - the dry twigs, leaves and lizard -like creatures crawling about, the servant chopping firewood and, of course, and number of crows in various postures on the rooftops of the buildings opposite."
- R. K. Laxman
"The water in music the oar forsakes. The air in music the wing forsakes. All things in move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars."
- John Muir
"‘Tell me my little children, what crime has this lizard committed that it must die this evening?’ There was silence. In raising my head like a joke, I tried to laugh. That was the same time I realized that grandma was dead serious with us."
- Obehi Peter Ewanfoh
"I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion."
- Nicolas Cage
Isabela is a determined millennial passionate about continuously seeking out ways to make an impact. With a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering with honors, Isabela’s research expertise and interest in artistic works, coupled with a creative mindset, offers readers a fresh take on different environmental, social, and personal development topics.
