Quotes about sound (2837 quotes, page 14)

“I have joined, once and for all, the ranks of the intellectual experimentalists. I can hardly bear the sound of the words "expressionism," "emotionalism," "personality," and such, because they imply the wish to express personal life, and I prefer to have no personal life. Personal art is for me a matter of spiritual indelicacy.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

n.p.
1921 - 1930, Art and the Personal Life', Marsden Hartley, 1928

Life , Art , Personality

“On those rare occasions when a great motion picture reaches multiplexes, the film critic must add another aspect to his or her job description: that of cheerleader. It is incumbent upon those of us who routinely dissect movies to applaud the arrival of something like Minority Report. Writing a review isn't enough — we have to get out there and actively stump for the movie. The underlying reason is sound: if Minority Report makes a lot of money, the studios will be encouraged to fashion more films of this sort. And that is a good thing — not just for science fiction lovers but for fans of intelligent, thought-provoking pictures of all genres.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/movies/m/minority_report.html of Minority Report (2002).
Four star reviews

Money , Intelligence , Lovers , Fashion

“The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet, and they are too well versed in English law to forget the maxim, boni judicis est ampliare juris-dictionem. We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring stride their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then, with the editor of our book, in his address to the public, I will say, that "against this every man should raise his voice," and more, should uplift his arm. Who wrote this admirable address? Sound, luminous, strong, not a word too much, nor one which can be changed but for the worse. That pen should go on, lay bare these wounds of our constitution, expose the decisions seriatim, and arouse, as it is able, the attention of the nation to these bold speculators on its patience. Having found, from experience, that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scare-crow, they consider themselves secure for life; they sculk from responsibility to public opinion, the only remaining hold on them, under a practice first introduced into England by Lord Mansfield. An opinion is huddled up in conclave, perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a crafty chief judge, who sophisticates the law to his mind, by the turn of his own reasoning”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter http://books.google.com/books?vid=0Fz_zz_wSWAiVg9LI1&id=vvVVhCadyK4C&pg=PA192&vq=%22impeachment+is+an+impracticable+thing%22&dq=%22jeffersons+works%22 to Thomas Ritchie (25 December 1820)
1820s

Life , Books , Law , Decision

“You can see the roughness of structure and the spots like wounds from battles on the canvas. The tops of skyscrapers with windows like eyes constantly remind you that there are laws surrounding the wastelands, and so you hide in the deep grass when you make love to a girl in dirty clothes, and experience how your nerves of seeing become stronger and stronger and every little sound more and more intense. That's what Pasolini's poetry is partly about; he was a street guy and therefore I avoided beautiful new wood or metal for his sculpture... The wasteland was Pasolini's other side; the boys, the knives, the nights, the tensions.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

Appel is referring to the Italian movie-maker Pasolini
Source: Karel Appel – the complete sculptures,' (1990), pp. 75-77 'Quotes', K. Appel (1989)

Love , Making love , Law , Beauty

“It is very appropriate that from this cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us time and again down through history. Let us rise to the call for freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.”

George Wallace (1919–1998) 45th Governor of Alabama

First Inaugural Speech as Governor of Alabama, (January 1963)
1960s

Love , People , History , Freedom

“Of all the sights and sounds which attracted me on my first arrival to live in London in the mid-thirties, one combined operation left a lingering, individual spell. I naturally went to Hyde Park to hear the orators, the best of the many free entertainments on offer in the capital. I heard the purest milk of the world flowing, then as now, from the platform of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.”

Michael Foot (1913–2010) British politician

Debts of Honour, 1980.
1980s

World , Nature

“First time you hear something, it sounds outlandish and broken and like it doesn't make sense. But once it's been in your head awhile it's as if the other thoughts in there wriggle out of the way to give it some room.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 27

Way , Sense , Time

“The thing was not discussable, even with a near acquaintance like Calvin because … because of the nature of the thing … because one had to behave like a normal, unworried human being. That at least was sound and clear and gave him comfort: behave like a normal human being.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Outside

Outside (1955)

Nature

“There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?”

Rush Limbaugh (1951) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, author, and television personality

See, I Told You So
Atria
1993-11-01
chapter 6
68
978-0671871208
93086342
29250177
1447014M

History , Time

“It's not about money right now. My ambition is to further create a signature sound, a signature spirit, that makes some kind of contribution to music in general.”

David Lee Roth (1954) Rock vocalist; lead singer with Van Halen

David Barton (July 3, 1994) "Jumping at the Chance - With His Newest Album, David Lee Roth Rocks, Rolls and Moves On", Sacramento Bee, p. EN3.

Money , Music

“It was the rule of Holt, Chief Justice, to make words actionable whenever they sound to the disreputation of the person of whom they were spoken; and this was also Hale's and Twieden's rule; and I think it a very good rule.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

Fortescue, J., Button v. Heyward (1722), 8 Mod. 24. This is in reference perhaps to Baker v. Pearce, 6 Mod. 23.
About

Justice , Thinking , Personality

“I read it for the first time in about 20 years this year–-recently. It wasn't so bad. I get it. I get fan mail now from people who weren't really born yet when the book came out. I don't think it's a perfect book by any means, but it's valid. I get where it comes from. I get what it is. I know that sounds so ambiguous. It's sort of out of my hands and it has its reputation so what can you do about it? There's a lot of it that I wish was slightly more elegantly written. Overall, I was pretty shocked. It was pretty good writing for someone who was 19. I was pretty surprised by the level of writing.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

On Less Than Zero
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=571852

People , Books , Thinking , Time

“Only straight discovering in the nearest stone or tree, sound or thought, the shelter of His often desecrated goodness, the treasury of His waiting form man's heart to affiliate with His will — this is the rapture of faith. It is an echo to a pleading voice, a reply to the inconceivable in all beauty.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"The Holy Dimension", p. 331
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

Faith , Beauty , Tree , Waiting

“Goodness is always an asset. A man who is straight, friendly and useful may never be famous, but he is respected and liked by all who know him. He has laid a sound foundation for success and he will have a worthwhile life.”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Herbert N. Casson in: Forbes (1948). p. 42
1920s-1940s

Life , Success

“"You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." and "I love Pops" (Louis' nickname) … Louis has been through all kinds of styles. That's good tuba, by the way. You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played — I mean even modern. I love his approach to the trumpet; he never sounds bad. He plays on the beat — with feeling. That's another phrase for swing. I also love the way he sings.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

In the Jazz Review with Nat Hentoff (1958); also in , and in many other books https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22play+anything+on+a+horn%22+miles+davis
On Louis Armstrong in a Playboy magazine interview.
1950s

Love , Way , Feeling , Singing

“Harry Dresden: For future reference, I was sort of hoping for a suggestion that didn't sound like it came from that Bolshevik Muppet with all the dynamite.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

The Dresden Files, Blood Rites (2004)

Hope , Future

“What matters in poetry is form, how words work together, the sounds and silences their combinations make. The ordered effects they produce on the attentive hearer.”

Michael Schmidt (poet) (1947) American poet

Lives of the Poets, Phoenix, 1988

Silence

“Lies are easy to believe in but the truth sounds false.”

Carole Morin British writer

Lampshades (1991)

Truth , Falseness

“Noory: [Referring to the Sago Mine disaster] Of course, this is after the fact, with the 12 or 13 coal miners they found successfully.
Browne: I know.
Noory: Had you been on the program today, and had they not been found, would you have felt as if, because they had heard no sounds, that this was a very gloomy moment, and they might have all died?
Browne: No, I knew they were going to be found. Uh, you know, I hate people who say something after the fact. It's just like I knew when the Pope was dead and I said it on, thank God I was on Montel's show, and I said, according to the time, it was 9-something and whatever Rome time was, and I said he's gone, and he was.”

Sylvia Browne (1936–2013) American author

January 3, 2006, on the U.S. radio program Coast to Coast AM with George Noory
Ultimately incorrect: the miners were found dead. January 8, 2006 Fox News Interview http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,180681,00.html

God , Hate , People , Time

“…in serial music, the series itself is seldom audible… What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one in the same thing.”

Steve Reich (1936) American composer

Source: Steve Reich, ‎Paul Hillier (2002) Writings on Music, 1965-2000, p. 35

Music

“Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks its true.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Train In The Distance
Song lyrics, Hearts and Bones (1983)

Love , Thinking , Training

“Life-flow of my natal hour, I will not weary of thy power,
Till in the changes of thy sound
A chord's three parts distinct are found.
I will faithful move with thee,
God-ordered, self-fed energy,
Nature in eternity.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Life Without and Life Within (1859), Sistrum

Life , God , Faith , Nature

“Meanwhile Medea, though she was singing and dancing with her maids, could think of one thing only. There was no melody, however gay, that did not quickly cease to please. Time and again she faltered and came to a halt. To keep her eyes fixed on her choir was more than she could do. She was for ever turning them aside to search the distant paths, and more than once she well-nigh fainted when she mistook the noise of the wind for the footfall of a passer-by. But it was not so very long before the sight of Jason rewarded her impatient watch. Like Sirius rising from Ocean, brilliant and beautiful but full of menace for the flocks, he sprang into view, splendid to look at but fraught with trouble for the lovesick girl. Her heart stood still, a mist descended on her eyes, and a warm flush spread across her cheeks. She could neither move towards him nor retreat; her feet were rooted to the ground. And now her servants disappeared, and the pair of them stood face to face without a word or sound, like oaks or tall pines that stand in the mountains side by side in silence when the air is still, but when the wind has stirred them chatter without end. So these two, stirred by the breath of Love, were soon to pour out all their tale.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 948–972

Love , Beauty , Search , Girl

“Whoever said "Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds" was as wrong as he was funny, but there is surely a case for saying that the story of Captain Ahab's contest with the great white whale is one of those books you can't get started with even after you have finished reading them.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Jorge Luis Borges', p. 65
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)

Books , Music , Reading

“For Beethoven, music was still shape, realized and inflected by instrumental sonority: other realizations may be as absurd as arrangements of the Hammerklavier, for example, always are, but the musical conception takes precedence over its realization in sound. The sonority serves the music. For Schumann, however, as for Chopin and Liszt, the conception was worked out directly within the sonority as a sculptor works directly in clay or marble. The instrumental sound is shaped into music.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 1 : Music and Sound

Music

“To-day unbind the captive,
So only are ye unbound;
Lift up a people from the dust,
Trump of their rescue, sound!”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Boston Hymn, st. 17
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

People

“Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

The Borderers Act iv. Sc. 2.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Way , Night

“For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad of tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves…. I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in my hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

Death , Birth , Chance

“Theresa May confirmed today that for years to come Britain will not have control of its borders. Instead we will have an unspecified transitional period after we leave, with no timeframe planned or announced. Yet again voters are being ignored by the political establishment. If Theresa May genuinely wanted to leave the EU then she would have used her speech today to announce that she is going to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act. We could be out of the EU within a single week. It is now over 200 days since the British people voted to leave the EU on June 23rd. The Tories seem to be doing everything they can to stall Brexit as long as they possibly can. We must be careful about Theresa May. When she was Home Secretary she gave several big speeches about controlling immigration. Then she opened the borders wider than the Labour Party. While some of the statements today sound good, her record for delivery is one of the worst for any politician in Westminster. We simply can’t trust her.”

Tim Aker (1985) British politician

Theresa May doesn’t want to control immigration http://www.timakermep.org/site/theresa-may-doesnt-want-to-control-immigration/ (January 17, 2017)

People , Home , Communication

“Thank you Joe Nobody for giving me your expert opinion on what missile sounds like, because gas station superintendents are usually the best people to ask about the sonic signature of ballistic missile thrust.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

The Best Page in the Universe

People

“I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the use of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard. Photoelectric, film and mechanical mediums for the synthetic production of music will be explored.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote of John Cage, in: 'The Future of Music: Credo' (1937); SILENCE 3-4
1930s

Music

“Republicans didn't have anything going for them with respect to Latinos and with respect to Asians… The Democrats didn't have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren't mean-spirited about it… They didn't know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind… He had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal… It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote… He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country… Take care of this incredible problem that we have with respect to immigration, with respect to people wanting to be wonderful productive citizens of this country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Interview with Newsmax http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/420996/trump-2008-bush-evil-talk-iran-obama-cannot-do-worse-bush-jim-geraghty (November 2012)
2010s, 2012

People , Problem , Country

“That night a little son was born in the tiny cabin beside the primeval forest, while a leopard screamed before the door, and the deep notes of a lion's roar sounded from beyond the ridge.
Lady Greystoke never recovered from the shock of the great ape's attack, and, though she lived for a year after her baby was born, she was never again outside the cabin, nor did she ever fully realize that she was not in England.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 3 : Life and Death

Baby , Night

“"Thank you for splitting. I guess we'd all better get on with it."
"Indeed," said Dame Quarto.
"We had," added Dame Septum. She raised her hand and dramatically announced, "I shall attend to the Middle House!"
"And I to the mountains!" declared Dame Quarto, and both strode from the room.
"And I to… sorting our Superior Saturday," said Arthur. Somehow it didn't sound the same.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Superior Saturday (2008), p. 106.

Mountain , Housing

“Once again, I experienced that overwhelming joy in the universe that I had felt in London outside the V and A. But this time, my consciousness of the world seemed larger, more complex. It was the mystic's sensation of oneness, of everything blending into everything else. Everything I looked at reminded me of something else, which also became present to my consciousness, as if I were simultaneously seeing a million worlds and smelling a million scents and hearing a million sounds-- not mixed up, but each separate and clear. I was overwhelmed with a sense of my smallness in the face of this vast, beautiful, objective universe, this universe whose chief miracle is that it exists, as well as myself. It is no dream, but a great garden in which life is trying to obtain a foothold. I experienced a desire to burst into tears of gratitude; then I controlled it, and the feeling subsided into a calm sense of immense, infinite beauty.”

Colin Wilson book The Philosopher's Stone

Source: The Philosopher's Stone (1969), p. 237-238

Life , World , Beauty , Dreams

“The Benthamic standard of "the greatest happiness" was that which I had always been taught to apply; I was even familiar with an abstract discussion of it, forming an episode in an unpublished dialogue on Government, written by my father on the Platonic model. Yet in the first pages of Bentham it burst upon me with all the force of novelty. What thus impressed me was the chapter in which Bentham passed judgment on the common modes of reasoning in morals and legislation, deduced from phrases like "the law of nature," "right reason," "the moral sense," "natural rectitude," and the like, and characterized them as dogmatism in disguise, imposing its sentiments upon others under cover of sounding expressions which convey no reason for the sentiment, but set up the sentiment as its own reason. It had not struck me before, that Bentham's principle put an end to all this. The feeling rushed upon me, that all previous moralists were superseded, and that here indeed was the commencement of a new era in thought.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873), Ch. 3: Last Stage of Education and First of Self-Education (pp. 45-46)

Law , Feeling , Nature , Sense

“It is the nature of poetry to emphasize that the physical sounds of words come from a particular body, one at a time, in a particular order.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

Poetry and the World, Ecco Press,1988

Nature , Time

“Many pianists are great, but Pogorelich is unique, like Rubinstein, their sound is instantly recognisable they both go beyond the notes.”

Ivo Pogorelić (1958) Croatian pianist

Gerald Moore, critique of Pogorelć's album Domenico Scarlatti - Sonaten

“This, I feel, is missing a vital point: that the sceptic is often a totally honest person who, for perfectly good, sound reasons, simply cannot see a case for belief. In fact many -- like Courty Bryan -- admit that they would like to be convinced, but find it impossible.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Alien Dawn (1998), p. 77

Feeling , Personality

“He gave a cry. At the last, falling backward, his face appearing to us for a second upside down before he was smothered on the floor by a pile of white uniforms, he let himself cry out: A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance, that if you ever trailed coon or cougar or lynx is like the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn't care any more about anything but himself and his dying.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 29

Hate , Fear , Dogs , Appearance

“Overhead, capricious spring clouds began to scud across the sky in mackerel shapes, promising more rain. Garraty turned up his collar and listened to the sound of his feet pounding the pavement. There was a trick to that, a subtle mental adjustment, like having better night vision the longer you were in the dark. This morning the sound of his feet had been lost to him. They had been lost in the tramp of ninety-nine other pairs, not to mention the rumble of the halftrack. But now he heard them easily. His own particular stride, and the way his left foot scraped the pavement every now and then. It seemed to him that the sound of his footfalls had become as loud to his ears as the sound of his own heartbeat. Vital, life and death sound.”

Stephen King book The Long Walk

The Long Walk (1979)

Life , Death , Way , Spring

“Our military behavior must be visibly consistent with our conduct in the political, economic, and international fields. Our strategic readjustments should not be mistaken for a new spurt in an armament race with the USSR. Any serious imbalance in military power between East and West is an encouragement to war- if it favors the Communist dictatorship. Actions to correct an imbalance of power and to replace the concept of Massive Retaliation by one of Flexible Response are measures conducive not to war but to world peace. Such are the notes to be sounded by confident leaders who know what they are doing and why. Then we can prepare ourselves calmly to the battle, knowing that if it is properly prepared, the odds are high for peace.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: The Uncertain Trumpet (1960), p. 179-180

War , World , Peace , Behavior

“Good jobs depend on sound tax policy. Last year, some in this hall thought my tax relief plan was too small; some thought it was too big. But when the checks arrived in the mail, most Americans thought tax relief was just about right. Congress listened to the people and responded by reducing tax rates, doubling the child credit, and ending the death tax. For the sake of long-term growth and to help Americans plan for the future, let's make these tax cuts permanent.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Death , People , Future , Help

“There was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

“"No!" shouted Arthur. "What's wrong with you? They're people! You can't just kill hundreds or thousands of Piper's children because the Piper might… just might… make some of them do something!"
"Can't we?" asked Dame Primus. She sounded genuinely puzzled.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Lady Friday (2007), p. 46.

Children , People

“I didn't start with rock or jazz musicians. It was just my great dear friend whom I miss very much who is no more, Yehudi Menuhin, Lord Yehudi Menuhin. We got very friendly from the year 1952. And when I came to Europe and started performing, we cut three albums in those days, known as "West Meets East." And then I did many other things later on, of course. My student George Harrison, who is like my son, and a great friend of mine, whom I taught sitar initially but later on he was so interested he composed a lot of songs being influenced by our Indian music and Indian spiritual and religious teachings, things like that. And I've done a lot of experimentations, which I don't like to call fusion or trying to mix Indian music or Western music like a cocktail to make it interesting. Genuinely what I wanted to do is have the base as pure as possible Indian music within the framework of raga and tala, and use non-Indian musicians, non-Indian instruments for a special sound, for the range, for the volume, for the colors and all that. And I think some of them came out nice. Of course I was very much criticized also for it…”

Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) Indian musician and sitar player

Ravi Shankar during his talk with Gross.

Music , Color , Thinking

“Lionel: Mrs. Simpson, don't you worry. I watched Matlock in a bar last night; the sound wasn't on, but I think I got the gist of it.”

Phil Hartman (1948–1998) Canadian American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist

On the Simpsons, Lionel Hutz

Thinking , Night

“The issue of 'science' does not intrude itself directly upon the occasion of the performance of a musical work, at least a non-electronically produced work, since—as has been said—there is at least a question as to whether the question as to whether musical composition is to be regarded as a science or not is indeed really a question; but there is no doubt that the question as to whether musical discourse or—more precisely—the theory of music should be subject to the methodological criteria of scientific method and the attendant scientific language is a question, except that the question is really not the normative one of whether it 'should be' or 'must be,' but the factual one that it is, not because of the nature of musical theory, but because of the nature and scope of scientific method and language, whose domain of application is such that if it is not extensible to musical theory, then musical theory is not a theory in any sense in which the term ever has been employed. This should sound neither contentious nor portentous, rather it should be obvious to the point of virtual tautology.”

Milton Babbitt (1916–2011) American composer

From Milton Babbitt, "The Structure and Function of Musical Theory", College Music Symposium, Vol. 5 (Fall 1965), pp. 49-60; reprinted in Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory, ed. Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone (New York: Norton, 1972), pp. 10-21, ISBN 0393005488, and in Milton Babbitt, The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt, ed. Stephen Peles, with Stephen Dembski, Andrew Mead, and Joseph N. Straus (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 191-201, ISBN 0691089663.

Music , Question , Nature , Sense

“It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Prologue.
Invisible Man (1952)

People , World , Way , Feeling

“Something new has been added, a new art of sound. Am I wrong in calling it music?”

Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995) French musicologist

The Liberation of Sound: An Introduction to Electronic Music (Prentice-Hall edition, 1972)

Art , Music

“The theory of waves has been much simplified, and somewhat extended, and their motions have been illustrated by experiments… A similar method of reasoning has been applied to the circulation of the blood, to the propagation of sound, either in fluids or in solids, and to the vibrations of musical chords; the general principle of a velocity, corresponding to half the height of a certain modulus, being shown to be applicable to all these cases: and a connexion has been established between the sound to be obtained from a given solid, and its strength in resisting a flexure of any kind; or, in the case of ice and water, between the sound in a solid and the compressibility in a fluid state. The doctrine of sound and of sounding bodies in general has also received some new illustrations, and the theory of music and of musical intervals has been particularly discussed.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Preface
A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts (1807)

Music , Water

“If his thinking has been sound, then this world is at the end of its tether. The end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

The Mind at the End of its Tether (1945), p. 1

Life , World , Thinking

“What should be the profession of faith of a sound but reasonable Imperialist? He will not be possessed with any secret desire to see the whole of Africa or of Asia painted red on the maps. He will entertain not only a moral dislike, but also a political mistrust of that excessive earth-hunger, which views with jealous eyes the extension of other and neighbouring European nations. He will have no fear of competition. He will believe that, in the treatment of subject races, the methods of government practised by England, though sometimes open to legitimate criticism, are superior, morally and economically, to those of any other foreign nation; and that, strong in the possession and maintenance of those methods, we shall be able to hold our own against all competitors.”

Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer (1841–1917) British diplomat

Political and Literary Essays, 1908-1913

Hunger , Secret , Fear , Faith

“Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isn't the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located.”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[dj13l1$hqa$1@reader2.panix.com, 2005]
2000s

Hope , Parting

“The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies.”

Kevin Spacey (1959) American actor, director and producer

As quoted in The Old Vic, Summer 2011

Jealousy , Way , Motivation , Personality

“"I'll sue you and the Sheriff's Department," he said, sounding more sulky than anything else. "Questioning me like a common criminal! And with an FBI agent standing over me in a threatening manner!"
Since Bishop was across the room leaning rather negligently against the filing cabinet, that was such an obvious exaggeration that Miranda could only admire it for a moment in silence.”

Kay Hooper (1957) American writer

Out Of The Shadows (2000)

Question , Silence

“Sweet semblance of the children who have forsaken me, Archemorus, solace of my lost estate and country, pride of my servitude, what guilty gods took your life, my joy, whom but now in parting I left at play, crushing the grasses as you hastened in your forward crawl? Ah, where is your starry face? Where your words unfinished in constricted sounds, and laughs and gurgles that only I could understand? How often would I talk to you of Lemnos and the Argo and lull you to sleep with my long tale of woe!”
O mihi desertae natorum dulcis imago, Archemore, o rerum et patriae solamen ademptae seruitiique decus, qui te, mea gaudia, sontes extinxere dei, modo quem digressa reliqui lascivum et prono uexantem gramina cursu? heu ubi siderei vultus? ubi verba ligatis imperfecta sonis risusque et murmura soli intellecta mihi? quotiens tibi Lemnon et Argo sueta loqui et longa somnum suadere querela!

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book V, Line 608

Life , God , Children , Understanding

“I always adapt to everything that’s going on. If a new iPhone 8 is coming out, I gotta get it. If a new computer is coming out, I gotta get. Everything that’s new. I don’t live in the past. I just don’t. I still have my sound. I still have my flow. Everything sounds like the stuff that I created from back in the ‘90s. All the flows, I created all of that. I created everything. Everything you hear on the radio, it’s the Three 6 sound so I keep that sound but I still stay relevant. I don’t dwell in the past. My mind is not in the ‘90s, even though I’m a bigger star in the ‘90s -- I’m not in the ‘90s. Some people be stuck back in time, in their prime, in their moment, but I always move forward. A lot of people ask me that. I just move forward.”

Juicy J (1975) American rapper and record producer from Tennessee; co-founder of Three 6 Mafia

Juicy J Interview Rubba band Business Wiz Khalifa Juicy J https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8070920/juicy-j-interview-rubba-band-business-wiz-khalifa

People , Star , Time , Past

“Quite deliberately you use your conscious mind playfully, creating a game as children do, in which for a time you completely ignore what seems to be in physical terms and 'pretend' that what you really want is real. If you are poor, you purposely pretend that you have all you need financially. Imagine how you will spend your money. If you are ill, imagine playfully that you are cured. See yourself doing what you would do. If you cannot communicate with others, imagine yourself doing so easily. If you feel your days dark and pointless, then imagine them filled and joyful. Now this may sound impractical, yet in your daily life you use your imagination and your emotions often at the service of far less worthy beliefs; and the results are quite clear - and let me add, unfortunately practical.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 622, Page 63
The Nature of Personal Reality (1974)

Life , Money , Children , Feeling

“A devout and serious Christian, she was often bothered by what she read of socialists because she could not, instantly and absolutely, see where they were so wrong. To her horrified ear, they kept sounding as though they had ideas rather like Christ's.”

Claud Cockburn (1904–1981) Irish journalist

Pages 11-12
A Discord of Trumpets (1956)

Idea , Reading , Christ

“I think the old, sound, and honest maxim that "you shall not do evil that good may come," is applicable in law as well as in morals.”

Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet (1802–1880) Lord Chief Justice

Reg. v. Hicklin and another (1868), 11 Cox, C. C. 27; S. C. 3 L. R. Q. B. 372; reported in Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904) by James William Norton-Kyshe, p. 92.

Law , Thinking , Evil

“…WHEREAS, IN THE PAST, THE POINT OF DISAGREEMENT HAS BEEN BETWEEN DISSONANCE AND CONSONANCE, IT WILL BE, IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE, BETWEEN NOISE AND SO-CALLED MUSICAL SOUNDS.
THE PRESENT METHODS OF WRITING MUSIC, PRINCIPALLY THOSE WHICH EMPLOY HARMONY AND ITS REFERENCE TO PARTICULAR STEPS IN THE FIELD OF SOUND, WILL BE INADEQUATE FOR THE COMPOSER, WHO WILL BE FACED WITH THE ENTIRE FIELD OF SOUND.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote of John Cage, in: 'The Future of Music: Credo' (1937); SILENCE; lectures and writings by Cage, John', Publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, CREDO/3
1930s

Music , Past , Future

“A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of a certain number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass of thought engenders a system of values.”

Ferdinand de Saussure book Course in General Linguistics

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 120

Idea

“Music has to do with sounds, so we need to find them somewhere and it is preferred to find musical ones. You have two sources for sounds: noises, which always tell you something — a door cracking, a dog barking, the thunder, the storm; and then you have instruments. An instrument tells you, 'la-la-la-la.' Music has to find a passage between noises and instruments. It has to escape. It has to find a compromise and an evasion at the same time; something that would not be dramatic because that has no interest to us, but something that would be more interesting than sounds like Do-Re-Mi-Fa…”

Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995) French musicologist

Electronic Musician magazine, December 1986
Interviews

Dogs , Music , Time

“Nepotism. My brother’s son, André Fischer, was the drummer in the band Rufus, with Chaka Khan. Apparently, the arrangements I made for their early records were appreciated, so in the following years I was hired almost exclusively by black artists. I am surprised that my arrangements are now considered one of the prerequisites for a hit album. People feel that they make a song sound almost classical.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

On how a white American of German extraction became the orchestral 'sweetener' of choice for R&B artists, as quoted in "Clare Fischer: The Best Kept Secret in Jazz" http://www.artistinterviews.eu/?page_id=5&parent_id=22/

People , Feeling

“We have classical associations and great names of our own which we can confidently oppose to the most splendid of ancient times. Senate has not to our ears a sound so venerable as Parliament. We respect the Great Charter more than the laws of Solon. The Capitol and the Forum impress us with less awe than our own Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey…The list of warriors and statesmen by whom our constitution was founded or preserved, from De Montfort down to Fox, may well stand a comparison with the Fasti of Rome. The dying thanksgiving of Sydney is as noble as the libation which Thrasea poured to Liberating Jove: and we think with far less pleasure of Cato tearing out his entrails than of Russell saying, as he turned away from his wife, that the bitterness of death was past.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

' History https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55901/55901-h/55901-h.htm', Edinburgh Review (May 1828)

Death , Pleasure , Law , Confidence

“I am delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like.”

Ann Richards (1933–2006) American politician

1988 Democratic National Convention keynote address
1988
Source: Transcript of the Keynote Address by Ann Richards, the Texas Treasurer, The New York Times, July 19, 1988, 2006-09-16 http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/19/us/text-richards.html?pagewanted=print,

“When Bonaparte was to be dethroned, the Sovereigns of Europe called up their people to their aid; they invoked them in the sacred names of Freedom and National Independence; the cry went forth throughout Europe: and those, whom Subsidies had no power to buy, and Conscriptions no force to compel, roused by the magic sound of Constitutional Rights, started spontaneously into arms. The long-suffering Nations of Europe rose up as one man, and by an effort tremendous and wide spreading, like a great convulsion of nature, they hurled the conqueror from his throne. But promises made in days of distress, were forgotten in the hour of triumph…The rulers of mankind…had set free a gigantic spirit from its iron prison, but when that spirit had done their bidding, they shrunk back with alarm, from the vastness of that power, which they themselves had set into action, and modestly requested, it would go down again into its former dungeon. Hence, that gloomy discontent, that restless disquiet, that murmuring sullenness, which pervaded Europe after the overthrow of Bonaparte; and which were so unlike that joyful gladness, which might have been looked for, among men, who had just been released from the galling yoke of a foreign and a military tyrant. In 1820 the long brooding fire burst out into open flame; in Germany it was still kept down and smothered, but in Italy, in Spain, and in Portugal, it overpowered every resistance.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1830/mar/10/affairs-of-portugal in the House of Commons (10 March 1830).
1830s

Men , People , Nature , Effort

“But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility?
It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody!
How grateful I was, then, to be part of the mystery,
To love, and to be loved!
Let’s just hope that is enough.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to Be Loved)
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Love , Hope , Parting

“Earlier fundamental work of Whitehead, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Whorf, etc., as well as my own attempt to use this earlier thinking as an epistemological base for psychiatric theory, led to a series of generalizations: That human verbal communication can operate and always does operate at many contrasting levels of abstraction. These range in two directions from the seemingly simple denotative level (“The cat is on the mat”). One range or set of these more abstract levels includes those explicit or implicit messages where the subject of discourse is the language. We will call these metalinguistic (for example, “The verbal sound ‘cat’ stands for any member of such and such class of objects”, or “The word, ‘cat’ has no fur and cannot scratch”). The other set of levels of abstraction we will call metacommunicative (e. g., “My telling you where to ﬁnd the cat was friendly”, or “This is play”). In these, the subject of discourse is the relationship between the speakers. It will be noted that the vast majority of both metalinguistic and metacommunicative messages remain implicit; and also that, especially in the psychiatric interview, there occurs a further class of implicit messages about how metacommunicative messages of friendship and hostility are to be interpreted.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Gregory Bateson (1955) " A theory of play and fantasy http://sashabarab.com/syllabi/games_learning/bateson.pdf". In: Psychiatric research reports, 1955. pp. 177-178] as cited in: S.P. Arpaia (2011) " Paradoxes, circularity and learning processes http://www2.units.it/episteme/L&PS_Vol9No1/L&PS_Vol9No1_2011_18b_Arpaia.pdf". In: L&PS – Logic & Philosophy of Science, Vol. IX, No. 1, 2011, pp. 207-222

Friendship , Hostility , Communication , Cats

“The first effort of education to civilise the child, will be to train and rightly direct his instincts. The second obligation upon the educators will be to bring about his true culture, by training him to use his intellect rightly. The third duty of education will be to evoke and to develop the intuition. When these three are developed and functioning, you will have a civilised, cultured and spiritually awakened human being. A man will then be instinctively correct, intellectually sound, and intuitively aware. His soul, his mind, and his brain will be functioning as they should and in right relation to each other, thus again producing co-ordination and correct alignment.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Education in the New Age (1954), p.50

Education , Soul , Effort , Training

“The word "Silence" today sounds "bridegroom" or the "tragedy of love."”

Joachim Kaiser (1928–2017) German music critic

quoted in Dieter Schott, Bill Luckin, Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe (2005), p. 225

Love , Silence

“Pope has more virulence and less vehemence than any of the great satirists. His character of Sporus is the perfection of satirical writing. The very sound of words scarify before the sense strikes.”

Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898) English illustrator and author

Table Talk" p. 64
Under the Hill and Other Essays (1904)

Sense , Perfection

“I want a poetry that can learn as much from popular culture as from serious culture. A poetry that seeks the pleasure and emotionality of the popular arts without losing the precision, concentration, and depth that characterize high art. I want a literature that addresses a diverse audience distinguished for its intelligence, curiosity, and imagination rather than its professional credentials. I want a poetry that risks speaking to the fullness of our humanity, to our emotions as well as to our intellect, to our senses as well as our imagination and intuition. Finally I hope for a more sensual and physical art — closer to music, film, and painting than to philosophy or literary theory. Contemporary American literary culture has privileged the mind over the body. The soul has become embarrassed by the senses. Responding to poetry has become an exercise mainly in interpretation and analysis. Although poetry contains some of the most complex and sophisticated perceptions ever written down, it remains an essentially physical art tied to our senses of sound and sight. Yet, contemporary literary criticism consistently ignores the sheer sensuality of poetry and devotes its considerable energy to abstracting it into pure intellectualization. Intelligence is an irreplaceable element of poetry, but it needs to be vividly embodied in the physicality of language. We must — as artists, critics, and teachers — reclaim the essential sensuality of poetry. The art does not belong to apes or angels, but to us. We deserve art that speaks to us as complete human beings. Why settle for anything less?”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"Paradigms Lost," interview with Gloria Brame, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum (Spring 1995)
Interviews

Pleasure , Hope , Art , Music

“The idea of a ‘system approach’ is both quite popular and quite unpopular. It’s popular because it sounds good to say that the whole system is being considered, but it’s quite unpopular because it sounds either like a lot of nonsense or else downright dangerous – so much evil can be created under the guise of serving the whole.”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Source: 1960s - 1970s, The Systems Approach (1968), p. 11

Idea , Evil

“A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration--it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

1955, quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812
1950s

Time

“I read world literature and I read French romances in the originals. I had quite a profound knowledge - no, that sounds conceited, but I did have a profound interest in everything spiritual.”

Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) German Nazi leader convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial

To Leon Goldensohn, March 10, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

World , Literature , Knowledge , Reading

“Empty hills, no one in sight,
only the sound of someone talking;
late sunlight enters the deep wood,
shining over the green moss again.”

Wang Wei (699–759) a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman

"Deer Fence" (鹿柴), trans. Burton Watson
Variant translations:
No one is seen in deserted hills,
Only the echoes of speech is heard.
Sunlight cast back comes deep in the woods,
And shines once again upon the green moss.
Translated by Stephen Owen
On the empty mountain, seeing no one,
Only hearing the echoes of someone's voice;
Returning light enters the deep forest,
Again shining upon the green moss.
Translated by Richard W. Bodman and Victor H. Mair

“…the sin of gluttony, also the sin of lecherous intent toward an honourable and high-placed matron…. But more sin is to come, and that sin a double one, namely of lechery in act, perhaps venial in the young but by no means to be condoned, and of adultery, which Saint John saith shall be punished by fire for the act and brimstone for the stink of the ordure of the partners in that sin…. She is but a heathen…. With the instinct of her kind she knoweth the best and most secret places for lechery…. thou are bent on sin, the act of darkness…. On her breath is no honey but the smell of strong drink, the potent mingling of barley and juniper in deadly ferment…. One man is from the Antipodes but, contrary to the superstition of the vulgar, he is like other men…. It is he who seeth the cabin where thy lust worketh itself out, he remembereth lewd advice of the charioteer of Cathay…. approacheth on tiptoe the sound of beastly gratification…. Lust croucheth now above in the rooftree, his wings fearfully foldeth…. But in his rage he spareth not her, calling her Jezebel and harlot….”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Devil of a State (1961)

Men , Secret , Drink , Strong

“I must tell you that in this moment all doubt as to my attested worth went out of me, who had redeemed a kingdom, and begotten a king, and created a god. So you waste time, my friend, in trying to convince me of all human life's failure and unimportance, for I am not in sympathy with this modern morbid pessimistic way of talking. It has a very ill sound, and nothing whatever is to be gained by it.”

James Branch Cabell book Figures of Earth

Manuel, in Ch. XXXIX : The Passing of Manuel
Figures of Earth (1921)

Life , God , Way , Failure

“Alexander Hamilton spoke the language of legitimacy when, as Publius, he noted in Federalist 27 the connection between sound Public Administration and widespread popular support”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

Source: To run a constitution, 1986, p. x

Support

“I'm constantly thinking melodies. Now, to add interest to those melodies, obviously you have to know what things can be superimposed over a chord, and I will think of extended arpeggios and the upper estensions. If I'm playing very vertically, I will invariably start to include certaing passing notes which imply certain scales -- like a melodic minor scale against a C minor chord, or diminished scales, something like that. But I'm not thinking of a scale at that specific moment. I'm thinking of the notes as surrounding that chord -- because I know how each of the twelve notes in music sound against a C minor seventh, for instance.”

Lee Ritenour (1952) American jazz guitarist, session musician, and composer

[Denyer, Ralph, The Guitar Handbook, 2002, 114, 0-679-74275-1]

Music , Thinking

“Sometimes I leave my room in a bit of a mess," he giggles. "And I can't do tricks on my skateboard. I just sit on it and roll down the hill. But although it sounds corny I get good grades at everything at school. But I'm not a swot. Honestly.”

Joseph McManners (1992) British singer, actor

Interview with British Newspaper The Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk:

School

“Not all horse care practices are bad; some have evolved for very sound reasons. But for those practices where the intent is bad or the results are harmful or ineffective, it is time to go back to nature and think things over.”

Jaime Jackson (1947) Horse hoof care professional

The Natural Horse (1997)

Nature , Thinking , Time , Horse

“Temporal was the first recording that captured my true guitar sound (dinosaurs slipping and blocks of wire whittled with a feather). The mood of the world was different and yet music (sculpted time) always is there waiting to be manifested.”

Shawn Lane (1963–2003) American musician

http://bardorecords.com/Bardo136.htm Press site for the album Temporal Analogues of Paradise (1995)

World , Music , Mood , Time

“First, all hands gave their best and their utmost, day and night, in good weather and bad, in order that the work might progress with all practicable dispatch. Second, the divers encountered the hazards of their work with unfailing readiness, with the greatest skill and frequently the greatest intrepidity and daring; it is trite to say that the job could not have been done without them; it is true to say that none could have done more than they did. Third, the commanding officer of the Falcon, Lieutenant Henry Hartley, whose seamanship was of the highest order, whose advice in all matters was invaluable, whose judgement was eminently sound, displayed a devotion to duty which was unceasing and a constant example to all hands.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

p. 183-184. Detailing the salvaging of U.S.S. S-51, an operation which King commanded.

Weather , Night

“The tenement – the name derives from a fifteenth-century legal term for a multiple dwelling – always seemed to me a “ship afloat in concrete.” After all didn’t the building carry passengers on a voyage through life? No. 55 sat at the corner of Dropsie avenue near the elevated train, or the elevated as we called it in those days. It was a treasure house of stories that illustrated tenement life as I remembered it, stories that needed to be told before they faded from memory. Within its “railroad flats,” with rooms strung together train-like lived low-paid city employees or laborers and their turbulent families. Most were recent immigrants, intent n their own survival. They kept busy raising children and dreaming of the better lie they knew existed “uptown.” Hallways were filled with a rich stew of cooking aromas, sounds of arguments and the tinny wail from Victrolas. What community spirit there was stemmed from the common hostility of tenants to the landlord or his surrogate superintendent. Typically, the buildings tenants came and went with regularity, depending on the vagaries of their fortunes But many remained for a lifetime, imprisoned by poverty or old age. There was no real privacy or anonymity. Everybody knew about everybody. Human dramas, both good and bad, instantly gathered witness like ants swarming around a piece of dropped food. From window to window or on the stoop below, the tenants analyzed, evaluated and critiqued each happening, following an obligatory admission that it was really none of their business.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

XV-XVI, December 2004
A Contract With God (2004)

Life , Hostility , Children , Lie

“Well, I still don't get it,' she said. 'The way you talk, it sounds calculating or something. Too cold. Planning every tiny detail.' 'And that's bad?' 'No. Not exactly.' 'What then?' She made a shifting motion with her shoulders. 'I don't know, it just seem strange, sort of. How you've figured everything out, all the angles, except what it's for.' 'For us,' he said. 'I love you, Kath.' 'But it feels — I shouldn't say this — it feels manipulating.'… He talked about leading a good life, doing good things for the world. Yet even as he spoke, John realized he was not telling the full truth. Politics was manipulation. (p. 35)”

Tim O'Brien (1946) American novelist

In the Lake of The Woods (1994)

Love , Life , Truth , World

“But the sound of water escaping from mill-dams, &c., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shakespeare could make everything poetical; he tells us of poor Tom's haunts among "sheep cotes and mills." As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places. They have always been my delight.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Quote from John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher (23 October 1821), from John Constable's Correspondence, part 6, pp. 76-78
1820s

Love , Water , Painting

“We saw a raven very high above us. It called out, and the dome of the sky seemed to echo the sound. It called again and again as it flew onwards, and the mountains gave back the sound, seeming as if from their centre; a musical bell-like answering to the bird's hoarse voice.”

Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855) English author, poet and diarist

July 27, 1800
Cf. Wordsworth's The Excursion, Book 4, lines 1175-87 http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww401.html.
Diaries

Music , Mountain , Bird

“I am still making my living reciting my verses for crowds who refuse to buy my books. I must do this, as all American rhymers must, however sick I may be of the sound of my own voice.”

Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) American poet

What It Means to Be a Poet in America (1926)

Books

“You'll be much better equipped for a long life in pictures if you have a sound theatrical background.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

If You Want Success (Screenland Interview) (1961)

Life

“The truth was that we still spoke Spanish every chance we got. And why, because, simply, it felt good to hear in the sound of the language with which our mothers had rocked us to sleep when we’d been little.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Truth , Sleep , Chance

“I suppose there is something appealing about a word that everyone uses with absolute confidence but on whose exact meaning no two people can agree. The word that I’m thinking of right now is genre, one of those French words, like crêpe, that no one can pronounce both correctly and without sounding pretentious.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Introduction to McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (2004)

People , Confidence , Thinking

“Sometimes it's impossible to explain the really important things, those that have affected us most deeply, and keeping silent is all that saves us in difficult times, because explanations almost always sound so lame with respect to the pain we have inflicted or that others have inflicted on us.”

Javier Marías book Tu rostro mañana

A veces resulta imposible explicar lo más decisivo, lo que más nos ha afectado, y guardar silencio es lo único que nos salva en lo malo, porque las explicaciones suenan casi siempre algo tontas respecto al daño que uno hace o le han hecho.
Source: Tu rostro mañana, 1. Fiebre y lanza [Your Face Tomorrow, Vol. 1: Fever and Spear] (2002), p. 94

Pain , Time

“The very saddest sound in all my memory was burned into my awareness at age five on my uncle's dairy farm in Wisconsin. A cow had given birth to a beautiful male calf. The mother was allowed to nurse her calf but for a single night. On the second day after birth, my uncle took the calf from the mother and placed him in the veal pen in the barn—only ten yards away, in plain view of the mother. The mother cow could see her infant, smell him, hear him, but could not touch him, comfort him, or nurse him. The heartrending bellows that she poured forth—minute after minute, hour after hour, for five long days—were excruciating to listen to. They are the most poignant and painful auditory memories I carry in my brain. Since that age, whenever I hear anyone postulate that animals cannot really feel emotions, I need only to replay that torturous sound in my memory of that mother cow crying her bovine heart out to her infant. Mother's love knows no species barriers, and I believe that all people who are vegans in their hearts and souls know that to be true.”

Michael Klaper (1947) American physician

Quoted in Joanne Stepaniak, The Vegan Sourcebook (Lowell House, 1998), pp. 39-40.

Love , Pain , People , Age