Quotes about song (1778 quotes, page 3)

“He who makes songs without feeling
Spoils both his words and his music.”

Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377) French poet and composer

Qui de sentement ne fait,
Son dit et son chant contrefait.
"Remede de Fortune", line 407; translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1997) p. 5.

Music , Feeling

“I'm a warrior. I was brought up as a warrior. I didn't have toys, I had weapons. I slept with a wooden sword until I was five. My first books were medieval demonologies with illuminated pages. The first songs I learned were chants to banish demons. I know what brings me peace, and it isn't sandy beaches or chirping birds in rain forests. I want a weapon in my hand and a strategy to win."
"So you're saying what brings you peace is war.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

"Now you get it."
Jace Herondale and Jordan Kyle, pg. 29
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

War , Books , Peace , Bird

“Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

A Coat http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1393/
Responsibilities (1914)
Context: I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

“With lightning, you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Reconciliation http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1568/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Context: Some may have blamed you that you took away
The verses that could move them on the day
When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind
With lightning, you went from me, and I could find
Nothing to make a song about but kings,
Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things
That were like memories of you--but now
We'll out, for the world lives as long ago;
And while we're in our laughing, weeping fit,
Hurl helmets, crowns, and swords into the pit.
But, dear, cling close to me; since you were gone,
My barren thoughts have chilled me to the bone.

“Keep up the loud harmonious song,
And imitate the blest above,
In joy, and harmony, and love.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1692).
Context: Consecrate the place and day
To music and Cecilia.
Let no rough winds approach, nor dare
Invade the hallow'd bounds,
Nor rudely shake the tuneful air,
Nor spoil the fleeting sounds.
Nor mournful sigh nor groan be heard,
But gladness dwell on every tongue;
Whilst all, with voice and strings prepar'd,
Keep up the loud harmonious song,
And imitate the blest above,
In joy, and harmony, and love.

Love , Joy

“The Spartans meanwhile, man to man, and with their war songs in the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had learned before; well aware that the long training of action was of more use for saving lives than any brief verbal exhortation, though ever so well delivered.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book V, 5.69-[2]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book V

War , Learning , Training

“Releasing those songs into the void, and not having the void answer back, led all of us to splinter off and attempt to make our mark by deconstructing. Instead of going forward with my tunesmithing, I went back to the beginning. And that’s what Pretty on the Inside was about.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On the failure of her first band, Sugar Babydoll, and the subsequent beginnings of her career, interview with The Georgia Straight (1999)
1996–2005
Context: Releasing those songs into the void, and not having the void answer back, led all of us to splinter off and attempt to make our mark by deconstructing. Instead of going forward with my tunesmithing, I went back to the beginning. And that’s what Pretty on the Inside was about. I said, ‘I’m not going to follow any of the songwriting values that I’ve been learning for a good seven years. Instead, I’m going to set up on my own land and make my own stake, and see where it goes.’ And the next place that takes me is Seattle, where what was happening was so heavy, and so intense.

“The first thing I did when I picked up any instrument, when I was five years old, was write a song.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

QRO Magazine interview (2007)
Context: The first thing I did when I picked up any instrument, when I was five years old, was write a song. It's kind of funny; I thought about it, statements that it's a "solo effort" — it's kind of like, "Oh, well I've been doing this since I was five." I was kind of doing this before I did anything else.

“O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

O Do Not Love Too Long http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1549/
In The Seven Woods (1904)
Context: Sweetheart, do not love too long:
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's
We were so much at one.
But O, in a minute she changed--
O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.

Love , Fashion

“Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine (1932)
Context: To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,
To welcome home mankind's mysterious friend
Wine, true begetter of all arts that be;
Wine, privilege of the completely free;
Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong;
Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong,
Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!

Singing

“Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs
And what's wrong with that?
I'd like to know
'Cause here I go again…”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

"Silly Love Songs", 1976
Lyrics, Wings
Context: You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs
I look around me and I see it isn't so
Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs
And what's wrong with that?
I'd like to know
'Cause here I go again...
I love you.

Love , People , World

“I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

A Coat http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1393/
Responsibilities (1914)
Context: I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

“Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)
Context: A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Music , Cry

“I would like to say to you, to the leaders of the left, and the leaders of the right, I sing… I sing for everyone. My song has no flag, my song has no party.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Introducing "Who by Fire"
Warsaw concert (1985)
Context: I come from a country where we do not have the same struggles as you have. I respect your struggles. And it may surprise you, but I respect both sides of this struggle. It seems to be that in Europe there needs to be a left foot and a right foot to move forward. I wish that both feet move forward and the body moves towards its proper destiny. This is an intense country; the people are heroic, the spirit is independent. It is a difficult country to govern, it needs a strong government and a strong union. … I would like to say to you, to the leaders of the left, and the leaders of the right, I sing... I sing for everyone. My song has no flag, my song has no party. And I say the prayer, that we said in our synagogue, I say it for the leader of your union and the leader of your party. May the Lord put a spirit, a wisdom and understanding into the hearts of your leaders and into the hearts of all their counsellors.

Singing

“You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

You Who Never Arrived (as translated by Stephen Mitchell) (1913-1914)
Context: You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment.

“The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. Starting at the dark bottom he would ascend the ladder and begin life over again, life, the only paradise there is, the bouquet of nature. He would make beauty beautiful. He would make eternity over again with his voice and his song. And clasping the new-born infant close, she looked at all the sunlight she had given the world.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVI
Context: The woman from the depths of her rags, a waif, a martyr — smiled. She must have a divine heart to be so tired and yet smile. She loved the sky, the light, which the unformed little being would love some day. She loved the chilly dawn, the sultry noontime, the dreamy evening. The child would grow up, a saviour, to give life to everything again. Starting at the dark bottom he would ascend the ladder and begin life over again, life, the only paradise there is, the bouquet of nature. He would make beauty beautiful. He would make eternity over again with his voice and his song. And clasping the new-born infant close, she looked at all the sunlight she had given the world. Her arms quivered like wings. She dreamed in words of fondling. She fascinated all the passersby that looked at her. And the setting sun bathed her neck and head in a rosy reflection. She was like a great rose that opens its heart to the whole world.

Life , World , Beauty , Nature

“Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.”

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery

My Triumph, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Context: Sweeter than any sung
My songs that found no tongue;
Nobler than any fact
My wish that failed of act.

Others shall sing the song,
Others shall right the wrong,—
Finish what I begin,
And all I fail of win.

Singing

“Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

"Hey Jude" (1968)
Lyrics, The Beatles
Context: Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better.
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better.

Sadness

“I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

O Do Not Love Too Long http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1549/
In The Seven Woods (1904)
Context: Sweetheart, do not love too long:
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
All through the years of our youth
Neither could have known
Their own thought from the other's
We were so much at one.
But O, in a minute she changed--
O do not love too long,
Or you will grow out of fashion
Like an old song.

Love , Fashion

“He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

A Prayer For Old Age http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1423/, st. 1.
A Full Moon in March (1935)
Context: God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone.

Thinking , Singing

“Epic shouts passed, and trumpet calls, and tempestuous sounds borne upon sovereign rhythms. For in that sonorous soul everything took shape in sound. It sang of light. It sang of darkness, sang of life and death. It sang for those who were victorious in battle. It sang for himself who was conquered and laid low. It sang. All was song. It was nothing but song.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)
Context: God was not to him the impassive Creator, a Nero from his tower of brass watching the burning of the City to which he himself has set fire. God was fighting. God was suffering. Fighting and suffering with all who fight and for all who suffer. For God was Life, the drop of light fallen into the darkness, spreading out, reaching out, drinking up the night. But the night is limitless, and the Divine struggle will never cease: and none can know how it will end. It was a heroic symphony wherein the very discords clashed together and mingled and grew into a serene whole! Just as the beech-forest in silence furiously wages war, so Life carries war into the eternal peace.
The wars and the peace rang echoing through Christophe. He was like a shell wherein the ocean roars. Epic shouts passed, and trumpet calls, and tempestuous sounds borne upon sovereign rhythms. For in that sonorous soul everything took shape in sound. It sang of light. It sang of darkness, sang of life and death. It sang for those who were victorious in battle. It sang for himself who was conquered and laid low. It sang. All was song. It was nothing but song.

Life , Death , Soul , Light

“This song is called American Idiot! It's about me.”

Billie Joe Armstrong (1972) American singer and guitarist

“Be not, O Greeks, so very hostilely disposed towards the Barbarians. To the Babylonians you owe astronomy; to the Persians, magic; to the Egyptians, geometry; to the Phoeicians, instruction by alphabetic writing. Cease, then, to miscall these imitations inventions of your own. Orpheus, again, taught you poetry and song; from him, too, you learned the mysteries.”

Tatian (120–180) Syrian writer

Ante-Nicene Christian library: v. 3 p. 5
Address to the Greeks

Learning , Hostility

“Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung!”

Edgar Allan Poe Lenore

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Lenore", st. 1 (1831).

Reading

“The singing legend lives on her suprabathams (morning prayer songs) and w:bhajansbhajans.”

M. S. Subbulakshmi (1916–2004) singer,Carnatic vocalist

Quoted in Ode to a Nightingale in "The Complete Guide to Functional Writing in English}, pages= 11-12
About M.S.

Singing

“I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song and that he hoped I’d fail,[...] I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the f—ing deli without hearing or seeing me.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Cosmopolitan (April 2010). https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lady-gaga-ex-boyfriend-quote/

Coffee , Hope

“Once I dreamed I'd write songs.”

David Miedzianik (1956) British writer

A Season of Changes

Dreams

“The knight's song and direction
I found new, but not confused;
He left our path,
but strode strongly and confidently.
When you want to evaluate, according to rules, something which doesn't follow your rules,
You have to forget your own ways,
And seek out its rules!”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Original: (de) Des Ritters Lied und Weise,
sie fand ich neu, doch nicht verwirrt;
verliess er unsre Gleise,
schritt er doch fest und unbeirrt.
Wollt ihr nach Regeln messen,
was nicht nach eurer Regeln Lauf,
der eignen Spur vergessen,
sucht davon erst die Regeln auf!
Source: Quotes from his operas, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Hans Sachs, Act 1, Scene 3

Way , Forgetting , Confidence , Self-confidence

“When I hear a certain song playing in the background, I think of you and a vision of your face, pervades my soul. When the second song plays, your sweet fragrance fills the air around me. The third song and her gentle hand caresses my face and tingles my body that is covered with goosebumps. At the fourth song, I gently glide to the radio and turn it off. There is no sense roaming in the darkened marred past. And I have adjusted to living without her.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2009

Sense , Past , Soul , Thinking

“when I listen to Iranian songs, it's like all of these daily releases are made by 1 guy, it is funny when all singers and artists wanna copy another one, it will kill the creativity forever.”

Big Mori (1996) Iranian rapper and athlete

Source: Skeletaa website https://www.skeletaa.com/post/big-mori-iranian-music-industry-needs-to-be-more-creative interview had done by Jack Sancho, 19 March 2021
Source: Rokna News https://www.rokna.net/%D8%A8%D8%AE%D8%B4-%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B2%D8%B4%DB%8C-8/673017-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%B6%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C-%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AF-%D9%87%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%B1-%DA%86%D9%87%D8%B1%D9%87-%D9%BE%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%AA%D9%84%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%82-%D9%87%D9%86%D8%B1-%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%B2%D8%B4-%D8%A8%D8%A7-%DA%86%D8%A7%D8%B4%D9%86%DB%8C-%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%AF%DA%AF%DB%8C-%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%84%D9%85

Guy

“The kind of batting that he has got when he is on song, he just takes your breath away.”

Sanju Samson (1994) Indian cricketer

About him
Source: Sanjay Manjrekar on Samson's batting. Samson takes your breath away- Sanjay Manjrekar https://www.indiatvnews.com/sports/cricket/pant-wins-you-games-in-10-minutes-samson-takes-your-breath-away-sanjay-manjrekar-641243

“Are you afraid of a song, of a picture?”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Senta, to Erik
Quotes from his operas, Der fliegende Holländer
Original: (de) "Fürchtest du ein Lied, ein Bild?"

“If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room, would you trust it?
I mean I write poems in these songs dedicated to you
When you're in the mood for empathy, there's blood in my pen
Better yet where your friends and them?”

Kendrick Lamar (1987) American rapper, songwriter and record producer from California

Poetic Justice.
Source: Song lyrics, good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012)

Flowers , Mood

“I'm glad I can be comfortable as an African and singing my YouTube language when I drop songs, I drop beat songs.”

Niniola (1986) Nigerian singer-songwriter

Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/niniola-femi-kuti-958136/amp/ Niniola speaking at an interview about her journey into music

Singing

“Nature herself, indeed, seems to have given music to us as a benefit, to enable us to endure labors with greater facility, for musical sounds cheer even the rower; and it is not only in those works in which the efforts of many, while some pleasing voice leads them, conspire together that music is of avail, but the toil even of people at work by themselves finds itself soothed by song, however rude.”

Quintilian (35–96) ancient Roman rhetor

H. E. Butler's translation:
Indeed nature itself seems to have given music as a boon to men to lighten the strain of labour: even the rower in the galleys is cheered to effort by song. Nor is this function of music confined to cases where the efforts of a number are given union by the sound of some sweet voice that sets the tune, but even solitary workers find solace at their toil in artless song.
Book I, Chapter X, 16
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)
Original: (la) Atque eam natura ipsa videtur ad tolerandos facilius labores velut muneri nobis dedisse, si quidem et remigem cantus hortatur; nec solum in iis operibus in quibus plurium conatus praeeunte aliqua iucunda voce conspirat, sed etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur.

People , Nature , Music , Effort

“Life is a dialogue between love and the dust,
but there's a deeper death than death,
this is death, when the love, departs,
Each drop of blood is a starry song
and our souls are breaths of eternity.
In the end the buds returning to the tree.
The tree cares for us.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://twitter.com/AKarpouzos/status/1607014795051687936

Soul , Tree , Love , Life

“Songs to Herself:
She waved at all the people on the trains & later, when she saw they didn't wave back, she started singing songs to herself & it went that way the whole day & she couldn't remember having a better time in her life.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Variant: She waved at all the people on the train & later, when she saw they didn't wave back, she started singing songs to herself & it went that way the whole day & she couldn't remember having a better time in her life.
Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Life , People , Way , Singing

“Dreams can change histories and songs can alter destinies.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Dreams , History , Change

“Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don't care if they lose it; they'll just make another one.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Children

“But Mike was like a Bjork song-all happy and giddy and fun on the surface, but bubbling with turmoil and pain underneath.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Unbelievable

Pain , Happiness

“Sing Me no songs tell me no tales cry me no tears, but remember me kindly.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Tear , Singing , Cry

“Between childhood, boyhood, adolescence and manhood (maturity) there should be sharp lines drawn with tests, deaths, feats, rites, stories, songs, and judgments.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Death , Childhood

“I want him to see the flowers in my eyes and hear the songs in my hands.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

Flowers

“This world has need of song and sword.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: Dragon Bones

World

“Every song has a memory; every song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open the eyes. But I’m afraid if you look at a thing long enough; it loses all of its meaning”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Memory , Heart

“Quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times, a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.”

Margaret Wise Brown (1910–1952) American children's writer and editor

Time , Parting

“There's in my mind a…
turbulent moon-ridden girl

or old woman, or both,
dressed in opals and rags, feathers

and torn taffeta,
who knows strange songs

but she is not kind.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

Source: Poems, 1972-1982

Girl

“Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs.
I wonder how they feel tonight.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

People , Books , Feeling , Thinking

“The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Life , Beauty

“Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 43

Sad , Beauty , Sadness , Beauty

“There was a song in this forest, too, but it was a savage song, whispering of madness and tearing and rage.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Tear , Rage , Madness

“Today the mockingbird does not sound very happy. It sounds if it is coming apart. As of the very heart of itself-its song-is breaking into pieces and flying off in a hundred directions.”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

Heart , Flying , Happiness

“The longer one is alone, the easier it is to hear the song of the earth.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by Sigismundo Celine

“I told you. You don't love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Love , Cars , Understanding , Singing

“I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

People , Books , World , Faith

“If I knew I was going to die at a specific moment in the future, it would be nice to be able to control what song I was listening to; this is why I always bring my iPod on airplanes.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Future

“Once the others were below, Hazel and Leo faced each other awkwardly. They were alone except for Coach Hedge, who was back on the quarterdeck singing thetheme song. The coach had changed the words to:, and Leo really didn’t want to know why.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Change , Singing

“But our wounds are part of who we are… and there is nothing left to chance…. And pain's the pen that writes the songs…. That call us forth to dance”

Michael Card (1957) singer, songwriter, author, composer, Radio Host

Pain , Chance , Dance , Parting

“It was like a song, one of those sweet, wrenching songs that makes the hair on your arms stand up. That makes you want to throw yourself on the floor and just bawl. Or fall backward and surrender to the music utterly.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

Music

“I am going to sing lesbian love songs and support gay rights no matter what. The rest is public relations.”

Jasmine Guy (1962) American actor, director and singer

Love , Support , Singing

“Lux spent the ride dialing the radio for her favorite song. "It makes me crazy," she said. "You know they're playing it somewhere, but you have to find it.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

“Oh, I would while away the hours,
Wanking in the flowers, my heart all full of song,
I'd be gliding all the lilies as I waved about my willie,
If I only had a schlong.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Flowers , Heart

“Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.

Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.

Their language has been lost.

But not the gestures.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Secret , Tree , Singing

“Your best work involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Age , Time

“How do you know about Boy George? (Jesse)
I was in hell, Jesse. What do you think they used to torture me with? Bad pop songs. (Xypher)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Boy , Hell , Thinking

“A poem is this:/A nuance of sound/delicately operating/upon a cataract of sense/… the particulars/of a song waking/upon a bed of sound.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Source: The Collected Poems, Vol. 2: 1939-1962

Sense

“The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom

Rebellious. Living.
Against the Elemental Crush.
A Song of Color
Blooming
For Deserving Eyes.
Blooming Gloriously
For its Self.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Color , Flowers , Nature

“I said, “I need to hear something that’s going to save my life.”

Re: Selecting songs from a jukebox.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys

Life

“I didn’t write that song to try and win you over, or to steal you away from him. I wrote it because I knew I never could.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

“The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Bird

“A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Commentary on the Psalms http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/PsalmsAquinas/ThoPs0.htm , Introduction

God

“My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that's walked,
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke,
When I think about myself.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life , Thinking , Dance

“It’s only the sea,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell. But you mustn’t go inside because it’s a labyrinth and you may never come out again.”

Tove Jansson book Comet in Moominland

Source: Comet in Moominland

Singing , Sea

“Walls have ears.
Doors have eyes.
Trees have voices.
Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain.
Beware the snow.
Beware the man
You think you know.
-Songs of Sapphique”

Catherine Fisher book Incarceron

Source: Incarceron

Thinking , Tree

“When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

“Singin' in the Rain was most excellent if you like movies where people burst into song and tap-dance. Which I do, though not as much as I like movies where people don't.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

People , Dance

“And right when your song ended I knew - just like your mother - I was a goner," Peeta says. "Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Forgive me, that I manage badly,
Manage badly but live gloriously,
That I leave traces of myself in my songs,
That I appeared to you in waking dreams.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Source: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Dreams , Forgiveness , Appearance

“It strikes Werner just then as wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colorful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world - what pretensions humans have!”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Books , World , Music , Color

“If they substituted the word 'Lust' for 'Love' in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Love , Truth

“You are the answer to every prayer I've offered. You are a song, a dream, a whisper, and I don't know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have. I love you, Aliie, more than you can ever imagine. I always have, and I always will.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love , Dreams , Imagination

“Our lives were just beginning, our favorite moment was right now, our favorite songs were unwritten.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

“Someone's parents have been singing entirely the wrong sort of songs.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Parent , Singing

“Adversity in life does not rob your heart of beauty. It simply teaches it a new song to sing.”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Source: The Time Between

Life , Beauty , Singing , Heart

“He has a song in his heart for me. I hope it is not "Shut Uppa You Face, Whatsa Matta You.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Stop in the Name of Pants!

Hope , Heart

“He was like a song I'd heard once in fragments but had been singing in my mind ever since.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Singing

“A bird doesn't sing because he has an answer, he sings because he has a song”

Joan Walsh Anglund (1926) American poet and children's book author

The quote has been misattributed to Maya Angelou at times, including on U.S. postage.
This quote by Joan Walsh Anglund (1967 in her book, A Cup of Sun) has been widely used by Maya Angelou without attribution to Walsh Walsh Anglund, and wrongly misattributed to Maya Angelou many, many times, including on U.S. postage. However, the quote belongs to Joan Walsh Anglund, and is from her book "A Cup of Sun" published in 1967. However, Maya Angelou changed the pronoun "He" to "It" but quoted everything else of Joan Walsh Anglund. Why Maya Angelou never attributed her most famous quote as being Joan Walsh Anglund's is still a mystery to this day.
Source: A Cup of Sun: A Book of Poems (1967)

Bird , Singing