Quotes about sound
page 20

Rachel Marsden photo

“Sarkozy was elected last year by insisting on immigrants speaking French and insisting that they integrate into the French culture…Obama’s call for Americans to learn Spanish to accommodate the onslaught of Mexican immigrants makes the French government sound like Rush Limbaugh.”

Rachel Marsden (1974) journalist

Contrasting Barack Obama with French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Barack Obama Has Little In Common With Europe http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27669

David Deutsch photo

“As I understand it, the claim is that the less you use Homeopathy, the better it works. Sounds plausible to me.”

David Deutsch (1953) British physicist

http://web.archive.org/web/20040817050226/http://www.qubit.org/people/david/index.php?blog=20040808030513
Weblog

Maimónides photo
Joe Trohman photo
Maddox photo
Billy Crystal photo
Walter Pater photo

“The presence that thus rose so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern thought has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself, all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea.”

Walter Pater (1839–1894) essayist, art and literature critic, fiction writer

On the Mona Lisa, in Leonardo da Vinci
The Renaissance http://www.authorama.com/renaissance-1.html (1873)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Miriam Makeba photo

“It's because they want to sound like Americans. I'd like to see them develop our music and sing it their way, but they think sounding American is going to take them higher, but it is not. They have beautiful voices, but they want to sound like Whitney Houston. You can't beat people like that at their own game. And they can't beat me at mine, either!”

Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist

Interview with Robin Denselow (May 2008)
Source: Denselow, Robin, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2280144,00.html, Robin Denselow talks to African superstar and activist Miriam Makeba, The Guardian, 15, London, 16 May 2008, 18 November 2010

Antoni Tàpies photo
Samuel Butler photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo

“A charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of life.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

This Lime-tree Bower my Prison
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Dejan Stojanovic photo

“There is no competition of sounds between a nightingale and a violin.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Dancing of Sounds http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21378/Dancing_of_Sounds
From the poems written in English

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“It was not hard to persuade people that the market was sound; as always in such times they asked only that the disturbing voices of doubt be muted and that there be tolerably frequent expressions of confidence.”

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter V, The Twilight of Illusion, Section II, p. 70

Géza Révész photo

“Ebbinghaus: Language is a system of conventional signs that can be voluntarily produced at any time.
Croce: Language is articulated, limited sound organized for the purpose of expression.
Dittrich: Language is the totality of expressive abilities of individual human beings and animals capable of being understood by at least one other individual.
Eisler: Language is any expression of experiences by a creature with a soul.
B. Erdmann: Language is not a kind of communication of ideas but a kind of thinking: stated or formulated thinking. Language is a tool, and in fact a tool or organ of thinking that is unique to us as human beings.
Forbes: Language is an ordered sequence of words by which a speaker expresses his thoughts with the intention of making them known to a hearer.
J. Harris : Words are the symbols of ideas both general and particular: of the general, primarily, essentially and immediately; of the particular, only secondarily, accidentally and mediately.
Hegel: Language is the act of theoretical intelligence in its true sense, for it is its outward expression.
Jespersen: Language is human activity which has the aim of communicating ideas and emotions.
Jodl: Verbal language is the ability of man to fashion, by means of combined tones and sounds based on a limited numbers of elements, the total stock of his perceptions and conceptions in this natural tone material in such a way that this psychological process is clear and comprehensible to others to its least detail.
Kainz : Language is a structure of signs, with the help of which the representation of ideas and facts may be effected, so that things that are not present, even things that are completely imperceptible to the senses, may be represented.
De Laguna: Speech is the great medium through which human co-operation is brought about.
Marty: Language is any intentional utterance of sounds as a sign of a psychic state.
Pillsbury-Meader: Language is a means or instrument for the communication of thought, including ideas and emotions.
De Saussure: Language is a system of signs expressive of ideas.
Schuchardt. The essence of language lies in communication.
Sapir: Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.”

Géza Révész (1878–1955) Hungarian psychologist and musicologist

Footnote at pp. 126-127; As cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 313-314
The Origins and Prehistory of Language, 1956

Peter Medawar photo
Michael Moorcock photo
Ferruccio Busoni photo

“Music is the art of sounds in the movement of time.”

Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and piano teacher

The Essence of Music (1923)

David Foster Wallace photo
Isaac Barrow photo

“These Disciplines [mathematics] serve to inure and corroborate the Mind to a constant Diligence in Study; to undergo the Trouble of an attentive Meditation, and cheerfully contend with such Difficulties as lie in the Way. They wholly deliver us from a credulous Simplicity, most strongly fortify us against the Vanity of Scepticism, effectually restrain from a rash Presumption, most easily incline us to a due Assent, perfectly subject us to the Government of right Reason, and inspire us with Resolution to wrestle against the unjust Tyranny of false Prejudices. If the Fancy be unstable and fluctuating, it is to be poised by this Ballast, and steadied by this Anchor, if the Wit be blunt it is sharpened upon this Whetstone; if luxuriant it is pared by this Knife; if headstrong it is restrained by this Bridle; and if dull it is roused by this Spur. The Steps are guided by no Lamp more clearly through the dark Mazes of Nature, by no Thread more surely through the intricate Labyrinths of Philosophy, nor lastly is the Bottom of Truth sounded more happily by any other Line. I will not mention how plentiful a Stock of Knowledge the Mind is furnished from these, with what wholesome Food it is nourished, and what sincere Pleasure it enjoys. But if I speak farther, I shall neither be the only Person, nor the first, who affirms it; that while the Mind is abstracted and elevated from sensible Matter, distinctly views pure Forms, conceives the Beauty of Ideas, and investigates the Harmony of Proportions; the Manners themselves are sensibly corrected and improved, the Affections composed and rectified, the Fancy calmed and settled, and the Understanding raised and excited to more divine Contemplation. All which I might defend by Authority, and confirm by the Suffrages of the greatest Philosophers.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 31: Prefatory Oration

Richard Huelsenbeck photo

“The dissection of words into sounds is contrary to the purpose of language and applies musical principles to an independent realm whose symbolism is aimed at a logical comprehension of one’s environment.... the value of language depends on comprehensibility rather than musicality”

Richard Huelsenbeck (1892–1974) German poet

as quoted in The Sound of Poetry / The poetry of Sound, ed. Marjorie Perloff & Craig Dworkin; University of Chicago Press, 2009, p. 310, note 22
a critic on the sound-poetry of Dadaist Hugo Ball

Taliesin photo
Dana Gioia photo

“The music that of common speech
but slanted so that each detail
sounds unexpected as a sharp
inserted in a simple scale.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"The Next Poem" http://www.danagioia.net/poems/thenextpoem.htm
Poetry, The Gods of Winter (1991)

Bram Stoker photo
Richard Rodríguez photo

“(Sylvia’s answering machine) Hi, at the sound of the beep please tell me what you like best about me.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 86

Arthur Waley photo
Ernst Schröder photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“[After]
Burnt to the dust, an ashy heap
Was every cottage round;—
I listened, but I could not hear
One single human sound:”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Glencoe from The London Literary Gazette (12th July 1823)
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

William Ernest Henley photo
Loreena McKennitt photo
Benjamin N. Cardozo photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Colin Wilson photo
Paul Krugman photo
Zainab Salbi photo
Pete Doherty photo
Amit Chaudhuri photo
Thomas Carlyle photo
William Lloyd Garrison photo
Edward Hirsch photo
Charles Maturin photo

“O wretched is the dame, to whom the sound,
"Your lord will soon return," no pleasure brings.”

Charles Maturin (1782–1824) Irish writer

Bertram (first staged May 9, 1816), Act II, scene 5.

Hugh Plat photo
Octavio Paz photo

“time in an allegory of itself imparts to us lessons of wisdom which the moment they are formulated are immediately destroyed by the merest flickers of light or shadow which are nothing more than time in its incarnations and disincarnations which are the phrases that I am writing on this paper and that disappears as I read them:
they are not the sensations, the perceptions, the mental images, and the thoughts which flare up and die away here, now, as I write or as I read what I write: they are not what I see or what I have seen, they are the reverse of what is seen and of the power of sight—but they are not the invisible: they are the unsaid residuum;
they are not the other side of reality but, rather, the other side of language, what we have on the tip of our tongue that vanishes before it is said, the other side that cannot be named because it is the opposite of a name:
what is not said is not this or that which we leave unsaid, nor is it neither-this-nor-that: it is not the tree that I say I see but the sensation that I feel on sensing that I see it at the moment when I am just about to say that I see it, an insubstantial but real conjunction of vibrations and sounds and meanings that on being combined suggest the configuration of a green-bronze-black-woody-leafy-sonorous-silent presence;
no, it is not that either, if it is not a name it surely cannot be the description of a name or the description of the sensation of the name or the name of the sensation:
a tree is not the name tree, nor is it the sensation of tree: it is the sensation of a perception of tree that dies away at the very moment of the perception of the sensation of tree;
names, as we already know, are empty, but what we did not know, or if we did know, had forgotten, is that sensations are perceptions of sensations that die away, sensations that vanish on becoming perceptions, since if they were not perceptions, how would we know that they are sensations?;
sensations that are not perceptions are not sensations, perceptions that are not names—what are they?
if you didn’t know it before, you know now: everything is empty;
and the moment I say everything-is-empty, I am aware that I am falling into a trap: if everything is empty, this everything-is-empty is empty too;
no, it is full, full to overflowing, everything-is-empty is replete with itself, what we touch and see and taste and smell and think, the realities that we invent and the realities that touch us, look at us, hear us, and invent us, everything that we weave and unweave and everything that weaves and unweaves us, momentary appearances and disappearances, each one different and unique, is always the same full reality, always the same fabric that is woven as it is unwoven: even total emptiness and utter privation are plenitude (perhaps they are the apogee, the acme, the consummation and the calm of plenitude), everything is full to the brim, everything is real, all these invented realities and all these very real inventions are full of themselves, each and every one of them, replete with their own reality;
and the moment I say this, they empty themselves: things empty themselves and names fill themselves, they are no longer empty, names are plethoras, they are donors, they are full to bursting with blood, milk, semen, sap, they are swollen with minutes, hours, centuries, pregnant with meanings and significations and signals, they are the secret signs that time makes to itself, names suck the marrow from things, things die on this page but names increase and multiply, things die in order that names may live:”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Monkey Grammarian (1974), Ch. 9

Peter Greenaway photo

“That sounds like a disadvantage.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Georgina and Michael
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

Halldór Laxness photo

“All creation complains and moans, my dear lord Commissarius. Complaint is its distinctive sound.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

the bishop of Skálholt
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Chuck Palahniuk photo
George Gissing photo

“Women, he held, had never been treated with elementary justice. To worship them was no less unfair than to hold them in contempt. The honest man, in our day, should regard a woman without the least bias of sexual prejudice; should view her simply as a fellow-being, who, according to circumstances, might or not be on his own plane. Away with all empty show and form, those relics of barbarism known as chivalry! He wished to discontinue even the habit of hat-doffing in female presence. Was not civility preserved between man and man without such idle form? Why not, then, between man and woman? Unable, as yet, to go the entire length of his principles in every-day life, he endeavoured, at all events, to cultivate in his intercourse with women a frankness of speech, a directness of bearing, beyond the usual. He shook hands as with one of his own sex, spine uncrooked; he greeted them with level voice, not as one who addresses a thing afraid of sound. To a girl or matron whom he liked, he said, in tone if not in phrase, "Let us be comrades." In his opinion this tended notably to the purifying of the social atmosphere. It was the introduction of simple honesty into relations commonly marked — and corrupted — by every form of disingenuousness. Moreover, it was the great first step to that reconstruction of society at large which every thinker saw to be imperative and imminent.
But Constance Bride knew nothing of this, and in her ignorance could not but misinterpret the young man's demeanor. She felt it to be brusque; she imagined it to imply a purposed oblivion of things in the past.”

George Gissing (1857–1903) English novelist

Source: Our Friend the Charlatan (1901), Ch. II

Joseph Priestley photo
Charles Baudelaire photo

“It is imagination that has taught man the moral sense of color, of contour, of sound and of scent. It created, in the beginning of the world, analogy and metaphor. It disassembles creation, and with materials gathered and arranged by rules whose origin is only to be found in the very depths of the soul, it creates a new world, it produces the sensation of the new. As it has created the world (this can be said, I believe, even in the religious sense), it is just that it should govern it.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

C'est l'imagination qui a enseigné à l'homme le sens moral de la couleur, du contour, du son et du parfum. Elle a créé, au commencement du monde, l'analogie et la métaphore. Elle décompose toute la création, et, avec les matériaux amassés et disposés suivant des règles dont on ne peut trouver l'origine que dans le plus profond de l'âme, elle crée un monde nouveau, elle produit la sensation du neuf. Comme elle a créé le monde (on peut bien dire cela, je crois, même dans un sens religieux), il est juste qu'elle le gouverne.
"Lettres à M. le Directeur de La revue française," III: La reine des facultés http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Salon_de_1859_%28Curiosit%C3%A9s_esth%C3%A9tiques%29#III._.E2.80.94_La_reine_des_facult.C3.A9s
Salon de 1859 (1859)

Stephen Colbert photo

“Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper, that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Expressing his awe at being so close to the president.
White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)

Joe Satriani photo

“Sounds cool. Looks cool. Feels cool.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

On what he likes most about the guitar, as quoted by Metal Edge (April 1994).

Ezra Pound photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“I love the sound of those engines.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

about Formula One cars, quoted at Indy 500 Speedway. Hot Race, Hot Folks At Indy 500 Speedway http://press.xtvworld.com/article12011.html June 9, 2006

Charles Krauthammer photo

“Affluent enviros are all for wind farms, until one is proposed that might mar the serenity of a sail from the crew-necked precincts near Nantucket Sound. Then it's clean energy for thee, not for me.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, September 11, 2009, "The Van Jones Matter" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer091109.php3#.U31vNsJOWUk at jewishworldreview.com.
2000s, 2009

Carson Cistulli photo
Meat Loaf photo

“You gotta understand that people attach me and Jim Steinman. But you really have to attach Todd Rundgren to that. … you really have to credit Todd Rundgren for the initial mark. Yes, Steinman had things in his head. And, yes, I had some things in my head; I had how “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” should sound in my head. Jim had how “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” should sound in his head. But pulling things out of your head and accomplishing them, and somebody else trying to accomplish them, is a remarkable feat. … So not taking anything away from Jim, ‘cause Jim is an absolute genius and one of the smartest people that I’ve ever known, and I consider him one of my best friends. But, y’know, sometimes, people just… they pigeonhole things, and they go, “Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf.” And my thing is, no, stop it! Because the Bat Out of Hell records are this: it’s a big wheel, and everybody is a spoke in that wheel… and, at different times as that wheel’s turning, different people have more input than others. It’s, like, as a wheel turns, the bottom spokes take more than the top spokes…but, pretty soon, those are gonna be the bottom spokes, and their import is more. And, so, that’s how that goes with the Bat Out of Hell records… and that’s exactly Bat Out of Hell III.”

Meat Loaf (1947) American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor

On credit for the Bat out of Hell albums.
A chat with Meat Loaf (2006)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Such as the lute, touch'd by no hand
Save by an angel's, wakes and weeps,
Such is the sound that now to land
From the charmed water sweeps.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Haunted Lake
The Golden Violet (1827)

Joseph Joubert photo
Carlo Carrà photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Will Eisner photo

“Do not despair
For Johnny-head-in-air;
He sleeps as sound
As Johnny underground.”

John Pudney (1909–1977) British writer

For Johnny.

Andrew Sega photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Zach Galifianakis photo

“I once played charades with a couple that was deaf….. they were amazing. I mean, none of this sounds like business.”

Zach Galifianakis (1969) American actor and comedian

Saturday Night Live (May 4, 2013)

Regina Spektor photo
Aimee Mann photo

“You can tell
By the laugh in the dark
at the sound of the bell
You can tell
It's the nucleus burning
inside of the cell…”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"Milwaukee" · YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqSYzOXkthg
Song lyrics, The Both (2014)

Eoin Colfer photo
John Godfrey Saxe photo
Basshunter photo

“The album is very different from the all the other albums today. First of all, the album was one year delayed because I wasn’t happy and every time I did an album it was unofficially finished. I had some time to listen to some new songs and plug into some music programs and discovered this new song and delayed the release for a month, because I wanted to update the new tracks to these new sounds I found… so then when I did that all the other songs sounded like crap compared to the new ones! So I said f*** this I need to reproduce the other ones as well. Then I scrapped a few songs and produced new ones. So to produce this album I pretty much produced maybe about 50 tracks and picked out the best of them. You know when you buy an album from a producer/artist, you kind of hear the same sound repeating in each song, you hear the same sound repeating, but this album is like every song is individual. Like you wont find two songs which have the same sound. Each song is completely different which I think kind of represents what I do because I produce everything and I love producing everything. Sometimes I’m in the mood to produce you know a dance song, sometimes I’m in the mood to produce an R&B song, it’s just interesting because I just want to show people that I can deliver to all ears.”

Guestlist interview with Ria Talsania (10 July 2013) https://guestlist.net/article/9219/catching-up-with-basshunter
Calling Time

Alastair Reynolds photo
Tom Wolfe photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Punk: I can't help but feel a little resp… hell, who am I kidding? I feel like I started this whole thing. This is all my fault. I've been at the epicenter of everything controversial ever since you took over—actually, since before that, I'm sure you remember, John-Boy.
Cena: I was there.
Punk: You were there. I'm the guy that made walking out look cool. The thing about is I think everybody in the parking lot having a picnic right now have completely misunderstood what I was trying to do. See, I didn't break my contract, I didn't break my word. My contract expired, and I was trying to prove a point to an entire company, not just one man. If anybody has any reason to walk out of the WWE, well you can probably put me at the top of that list. I mean, my microphone constantly cuts out, your friend Kevin Nash runs through the… well, slowly, briskly runs through the crowd, jumps me and screws me not once, but twice. Somebody here doesn't want me to be the WWE Champion. The thing about it is this entire industry is based on men solving their problems in between these ropes. This is the company that gives you Hell in a Cell, this is the company that gives you the Elimination Chamber. I don't wanna sound like a broken record, but "unsafe working environment"? I thrive on that! Hell, this is professional wrestling, this ain't ballet! If you believe in something, you stand and you fight, and you fight on the front line; you don't have a hippie sit-in and grill tofu dogs in the parking lot like a bunch of hippies. [To Triple H] When I had a problem with you and your authority, I dealt with you personally. [To Cena] And you, you big boy scout, when I had a problem with you being the poster boy for this company, I dealt with you personally. Shea-Mo, I'm sure sooner or later, you're gonna step on my toes, I will deal with you personally. Now, I know you three smiley good guys look across the ring from me, and I'm the last guy you expect to see here, [to Triple H] and I know I'm the last guy you expect to see in the foxhole with you. But you know what? Here I am. So… so I got a question—what do we do now?
Triple H: "What do we do now?" That's a big question, "what do we do now?" I say we do what we do on Monday Night Raw—we shut up and fight! How about this? As long as you guys are in agreement, Sheamus, you got yourself a match, fella. Tonight, right here, right now, you will go one-on-one with… [Punk raises his hand] one John Cena. And since I'm the only guy kinda wearing stripes out here, I'll referee. And, foxhole buddy, I got a whole table over there lined up with headphones and pipe bombs just waiting for you with your name on it. And if you want, you can go over there and say anything you feel like.
Punk: You want me to do commentary?!
Triple H: I want you to do commentary.
Punk: Can I wear your blazer?!
Triple H: You can even wear my blazer!
Punk: I'm in!”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

October 10, 2011
WWE Raw

George W. Bush photo
H.L. Mencken photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“A slight sound at evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life seem inexpressibly serene and grand. It may be Uranus, or it may be in the shutter.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

July 10-12, 1841
Journals (1838-1859)

Rufus Choate photo

“Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.”

Rufus Choate (1799–1859) American politician

Letter to the Maine Whig Committee (1856). Six years earlier, Choate gave a lecture in Providence which was reviewed by Franklin J. Dickman in the Journal of December 14, 1849. Unless Choate used the words "glittering generalities", and Dickman made reference to them, it would seem as if Dickman must have the credit of originating the catchword. Dickman wrote: "We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than permanent". Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Jonathan Stroud photo
Charles Lamb photo
Anne Hathaway photo

“Before I met him, I wasted so much time. I was just annoying and narcissistic, and smelled bad. He’s protective without being possessive, passionate without needing to show his temper. I’m sorry, I know I sound insipid.”

Anne Hathaway (1982) American actress

On her boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, as quoted in "Anne Hathaway : I'm Not a Saint" in People magazine (20 February 2007)

Duke Ellington photo

“There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind … the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed.”

Duke Ellington (1899–1974) American jazz musician, composer and band leader

Where Is Jazz Going? Music Journal (1962) Reproduced in The Duke Ellington Reader, ISBN 978-0-19-509391-9.

Colin Wilson photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo

“In poetry much of the sense and most of the pleasure resides in the sounds the poem make.”

Michael Schmidt (poet) (1947) American poet

The Great Modern Poets, London, 2006

Dana Gioia photo
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

B 44
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771)