# Do you know this quote? "Life is like a moth at night, belltower, something something..." **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 27, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-this-quote-life-is-like-a-moth-at-night-belltower-something-something/610913 "2012-01-27T22:06:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-this-quote-life-is-like-a-moth-at-night-belltower-something-something/610913/1 "2012-01-27T22:06:27Z")
I’ve been trying to find this quote for years because I think a poster here used to use it as a sig, or posted it once in a thread. It’s pretty obscure and I can’t remember the exact wording or the author at all, but I remember it being rather beautiful. It had something to do with how life was the moment between when a moth enters the archway of a lighted bell tower at night then floats off into the darkness on the other side. I’m 90% sure it was a moth. I’m 85% sure a tower was involved. I’m 35% sure it was an archway or “bell” tower. Thanks so much for your help! ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-this-quote-life-is-like-a-moth-at-night-belltower-something-something/610913/2 "2012-01-27T22:13:53Z")
I know what you’re talking about, but I’ve heard it as a bird. It actually came up in the Discworld book I just finished reading, Interesting Times. The Old English saying goes something like: > [@](#): > > Our life is like a bird that flies in through one window of the hall and then through another back out into the night. For that brief moment, we see it. It comes and just as suddenly it is gone. We do not know where it comes from or where it goes. Such is a life. (Wording taken from [this blog](http://bdsermons.blogspot.com/2010/05/whence-and-whither-night-birds-flight.html).) Figuring out who said it or where it came from is going to be a difficult matter, though. ---
**Author:** ![Teacake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Teacake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teacake)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-this-quote-life-is-like-a-moth-at-night-belltower-something-something/610913/3 "2012-01-27T22:32:59Z")
It was attributed to an advisor who was with Paulinus when he was trying to convert King Edwin of Northumbria, in the Venerable Bede’s [_Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IUyS_pgwFoIC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=bede+a+sparrow+flies+swiftly+through+the+hall&source=bl&ots=30G2YJcpEh&sig=3GtMVN9Wo97n-Xwvy9Hw9kR6OhI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cCYjT5-_IJDFtAaWhqi6Dg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q&f=false): “You are sitting feasting with your ealdormen and thegns in winter time; the fire is burning on the hearth in the middle of the hall and all inside is warm, while outside the wintry storms of rain and snow are raging; and a sparrow flies swiftly through the hall. It enters in at one door and quickly flies out the other. For the few moments it is inside, the storm and wintry tempest cannot touch it, but after the briefest moment of calm, it flits from your sight, out of the wintry storm and into it again.” (scroll down page 95) ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2012, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-this-quote-life-is-like-a-moth-at-night-belltower-something-something/610913/4 "2012-01-27T23:00:51Z")
So about that being a difficult matter. Um, never mind.