“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”

— Lewis Carroll , book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

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Lewis Carroll 241

English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer 1832–1898

Roger Kahn (1927–2020) American baseball writer

Source: The Boys Of Summer, Chapter 1, The Trolley Car That Ran By Ebbets Field, p. 55

“But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard;
Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“It seems to me I've heard that song before.
It's from an old familiar score.
I know it well, that melody.”

Sammy Cahn (1913–1993) American lyricist, songwriter, musician

I've Heard that Song Before (1942)
Song lyrics

“The listener isn't aware that they are new notes, but the sound is pleasing to the ear. I change the key, and somehow it's fresh because you haven't heard those notes before.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

As quoted in "Paul Simon's Workshop at the Guitar Study Center" by Richard Albero and Fred Styles in Guitar Player (April 1975), p. 21
Context: I didn't want to repeat the same notes in the second verse that I used in the first, so I wrote out all the notes of the song and all the notes that were missing in the scale, given that there are twelve notes from octave to octave. All those notes that weren't in the scale were the ones I wanted in for the next verse. The listener isn't aware that they are new notes, but the sound is pleasing to the ear. I change the key, and somehow it's fresh because you haven't heard those notes before.

“His voice is deep and gravelly. I once heard one of the girls say that he had the voice of a sex god, but because I've never really heard what a sex god sounds like, I can't verify that.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

“It was as if I heard a painful sound saying: "This must be ended."”

Ba Jin (1904–2005) Chinese novelist

Preface to The Autumn in the Spring (May 1932)
Context: The unreasonable social system, the marriage without freedom, the yoke of traditional ideas, and the family autocracy, destroyed we don't know how many young souls. In my twenty eight years, I already had it accumulated so many, so many shadows. In that autumn smile, in that smiling which was the same as crying, I saw the young people's corpses in the whole past generation. It was as if I heard a painful sound saying: "This must be ended."