As resourceful, unique, and lovable as giraffes are, it should be little surprise they are the centerpiece of many famous quotes. If you need a little giraffe inspiration (and a touch of humor), check out these wise words from great minds, past and present:

“Well as giraffes say, you don’t get no leaves unless you stick your neck out.” – Sid Waddell

“Being a very tall person, I have always felt a kinship with giraffes.” – Alexandra Bracken

“Giraffes are fairytale animals, almost heraldic – as if from the land of fables. They have extremely beautiful faces, huge eyes, very sensitive nostrils, and oh, blue tongues!” – Joanna Lumley

“I’d hate to be a giraffe with a sore throat.” – Mitch Hedberg

“On the neck of a giraffe a flea begins to believe in immortality.” – Bill Vaughan

“This is the greatest discovery of the scientific enterprise: You take hydrogen gas, and you leave it alone, and it turns into rosebuds, giraffes, and humans.” – Brian Swimme

“A bit of advice: Never read a pop-up book about giraffes.” – Sean Lock

“Why didn’t evolution make a giraffe good at carpentry so it could build a ladder?” – Karl Pilkington

“If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If in your bold creative way you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton

“NASA space scientists have been studying giraffe skin so they can apply what they learn from it to the construction of spacesuits.” – Joanna Lumley

“There is no doubt in my mind that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul.” – Yann Martel

“Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what’s possible could reason half the jungle out of being.” – John Ciardi

“A giraffe is so much a lady that one refrains from thinking of her legs, but remembers her as floating over the plains in long garb, draperies of morning mist her mirage.” – Isak Dinesen

“When people think about the ark, they’re always thinking about all the thousands of years of religious iconography of a ship with a bow and a deck, where Noah and the giraffes could walk around. In the actual written text it is basically described as a long, rectangular box.” – Darren Aronofsky