``There is a parrot living in a bar in Tijuana - I have this on excellent
authority - who causes people to order more drink than they
intended by sidling up to them, cocking his head, and asking, ``Can
you talk?''  ...

``... the human resentment of parrots, especially all the talk about their
having devils in them and so on, springs not from their startling ability to
utter human phrases but from their aggravating refusal to let you choose
the topic.  You know how it is.  You go up to a parrot, and he's probably in
a cage and you're not, so you feel pretty superior, maybe you even think you can
feel sorry for the parrot, and you ask the parrot how he is, and he says 
something gnomic like, ``So's your old man,'' or ``How fine and purple are the 
swallows of late summer.''  Then the parrot looks at you in a really interested, 
expectant way, to see if you're going to keep your end up.  At first you think 
you've been insulted, but a parrot is too cool to throw insults around, unlike a 
blue jay, and once you notice that, you start trying to figure out what the 
parrot means by it, and there you are.  You haven't a prayer of reintroducing 
whatever topic you had in mind.  That's why philosophers keep denying that 
parrots can talk, of course, because a philosopher really likes to keep control 
of a conversation.''

- Vicki Hearne, _Animal Happiness_ p.4