Sounds Quotes

“To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,
To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;
To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness
Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.
To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“MOTHER IS WATER

I wish I could
Shower your head with flowers
And anoint your feet with my tears,
For I know I have caused you
So much heartache, frustration and despair –
Throughout my youthful years.
I wish I could give you
The remainder of my life
To add to yours,
Or simply erase
The lines on your face,
And mend all that has been torn.
For next to God,
You are the fire
That has given light
To the flame in each of my eyes.
You are the fountain
That nourished my growth,
And from your chalice –
Gave me life.
Without the wetness of your love,
The fragrance of your water,
Or the trickling sounds of
Your voice,
I shall always feel
thirsty.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Love is like a musical score, sometimes very tuneful, creating a harmony of sounds, sometimes extremely harsh, striking a hell of false notes. (“Love lying fallow “)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Let us drop our 'tin ear' and listen to the sounds of the 'real' world veiled beyond our inattention, and overwhelmed by the smoke and mirrors of superficiality. ("Like a frozen image")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“If we put the sterile mechanism of our brain on hold, we can view an ocean of enticing eye-opening perspectives. Life offers us an array of choices allowing us to discover a spray of overpowering colors, and hear overwhelming new sounds, and smell the intense fragrances of nature. ("The final decision" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just
crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’être, which
is a French expression that I know. Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I’d train it to say, “Wasn’t me!” every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, “Ce n’étais pas moi!”
What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboard down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

“Since there is no real silence,
Silence will contain all the sounds,
All the words, all the languages,
All knowledge, all memory.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.”
― Hazrat Inayat Khan

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

“But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train

“In every sound, the hidden silence sleeps.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, The Creator

“Be music always. Keep changing the keys, tones, pitch, and volume of each of the songs you create along your life's journey and play on.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Now, remember: they're not for eating, but for listening, because you'll often be hungry for sounds as well as food. Here are street noises at night, train whistles from a long way off, dry leaves burning, busy department stores, crunching toast, creaking bed springs, and of course, all kinds of laughter. There's a little of each, and in far off, lonely places, I think you will be glad to have them.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Who are you? What’s your name?”
“Mi Mi.”
“Do you hear that thumping noise?”
“No.”
“It must be here somewhere.” Tin Win knelt down. Now it was nearly next to his ear. “I hear it more and more distinctly. A soft pulsing. You really don’t hear it?”
“No.”
“Close your eyes.”
Mi Mi closed her eyes. “Nothing,” she said, and laughed. Tin Win leaned over and felt her breath on his face. “I think it’s coming from you.” He crept closer to her and held his head just in front of her chest.
There it was. Her heartbeat.”
― Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

“In an endless silence even screams sound silent.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, The Creator

“Sound unbound by nature becomes bounded by art.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“Song of myself
Now I will do nothing but listen,
To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames,
clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,
Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of
work-people at their meals,
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,
The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing
a death-sentence,
The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the
refrain of the anchor-lifters,
The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking
engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights,
The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,
The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two,
(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)

I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,)
I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,
It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.

I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,
Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.”
― Walt Whitman

“I had once been splintered into a million beings and objects. Today I am one, tomorrow I shall splinter again. And thus everything in the world decants and modulates. That day I was on the crest of a wave. I knew that all my surroundings were notes of one and the same harmony, knew - secretly - the source and the inevitable resolution of the sounds assembled for an instant, and the new chord that would be engendered by each of the dispersing notes. My soul's musical ear knew and comprehended everything.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

“Sometimes I wait at the bottom of those dark stairs, I sit at the bottom of the stairs, I wait beyond the bottom of the stairs and listen to the sounds my wife and children make as they sleep, the sounds our animals make as they step carefully through our dreams and out the other side to polished floor and cold window. Sometimes I wait so long I become unsure if I am asleep, or awake, or dead.”
― Steve Rasnic Tem, The Man on the Ceiling

“I was just thinking how the purr of a contented cat is one of my favorite sounds in the world. There's something so comforting about it, isn't there?”
― Laura Lam, Shadowplay

“A versifier passes through the sound; sounds go through a poet.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, Serbian Satire and Aphorisms

“For me, who has been so much alone, it feels like drowning in a deluge of sights and sounds and smells.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“It took her a moment, as always, to acclimate to the roar that surged in her mind's ears, a sound she had attempted to describe to her sister and mother more than once but never could. Like being filled with golden bees that were all actually one bee, which was actually a field of shining wheat rustling beneath a blazing sun. It was a sound but not a sound. It was in her ears but it was in her head. It was like tasting a feeling and the feeling was power.”
― Emma Törzs, Ink Blood Sister Scribe

“You may be gone, yet here you are found,
in the roses, in each morning, every new sound,
since reminds me everything of us,
“I love you…” I would say to you out loud - this I trust…”
― Will Advise, На чист Български...: Pristine Bulgarian sayings...

“I looked toward the small vent in the corner of the ceiling through which the music entered my cell. The source must have been far away, for it was just a faint stirring of notes, but when I closed my eyes, I could hear it more clearly. I could... see it. As if it were a grand painting, a living mural.

There was beauty in the music- beauty and goodness. The music folded over itself like batter being poured from a bowl, one note atop another, melting together to form a whole, rising, filling me. It wasn't wild music, but there was a violence of passion in it, a swelling kind of joy and sorrow. I pulled my knees to my chest, needing to feel the sturdiness of my skin, even with the slime of the oily paint upon it.

The music built a path, an ascent founded upon archways of colour. I followed it, walking out of that cell, through layers of earth, up and up- into fields of cornflowers, past a canopy of trees, and into the open expanse of sky. The pulse of the music was like hands that gently pushed me onward, pulling me higher, guiding me through the clouds. I'd never seen clouds like these- in their puffy sides, I could discern faces fair and sorrowful. They faded before I could view them too clearly, and I looked into the distance to where the music summoned me.

It was either a sunset or a sunrise. The sun filled the clouds with magenta and purple, and its orange-gold rays blended with my path to form a band of shimmering metal.

I wanted to fade into it, wanted the light of that sun to burn me away, to fill me with such joy that I would become a ray of sunshine myself. This wasn't music to dance to- it was music to worship, music to fill in the gaps of my soul, to bring me to a place where there was no pain.

I didn't realise I was weeping until the wet warmth of a tear splashed upon my arm. But even then I clung to the music, gripping it like a ledge that kept me from falling. I hadn't realised how badly I didn't want to tumble into that deep dark- how much I wanted to stay here among the clouds and colour and light.

I let the sounds ravage me, let them lay me flat and run over my body with their drums. Up and up, building to a palace in the sky, a hall of alabaster and moonstone, where all that was lovely and kind and fantastic dwelled in peace. I wept- wept to be so close to that palace, wept for the need to be there. Everything I wanted was there- the one I loved was there-

The music was Tamlin's fingers strumming my body; it was the gold of his eyes and the twist of his smile. It was that breathy chuckle, and the way he said those three words. It was this I was fighting for, this I had sworn to save.

The music rose- louder, grander, faster, from wherever it was played- a wave that peaked, shattering the gloom of my cell. A shuddering sob broke from me at the sound faded into silence. I sat there trembling and weeping, too raw and exposed, left naked by the music and the colour in my mind.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Thorns and Roses

“Bees are a recurring symbol of the Merovingians and the humming or buzzing sound of bees is likened to supersensible “sounds” experienced by many Sufis as they enter spirit realms.”
― Laurence Galian, The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis

“Which is better?
To have heard the sound of children’s laughter?
To have listened to the song of birds at morning’s peak?
To have beat your fingers
in rhythm to the cities traffic?
to have giggled at the whispers of your lover’s sweet…
nothings?
Or never hearing any of those things at all?
Therefore never, forever craving those things that was?
Which is better?

Aw deaf man.
Can you even hear me?”
― N'Zuri Za Austin

“Scientists still do not have a comprehensive understanding of plant signaling mechanisms, although they do know that perception of a sound vibration can cause changes in plant hormones, gene expression, and emissions of volatile organic compounds—which are used frequently by plants as defensive signals against predators.”
― Karen Bakker, The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants

“Sounds"
Few are the sounds
that deepen and enrich silence ..
There are sounds without which
silence remains incomplete,
like a ticking clock
or the sudden sound of a cycling fridge…
The chirping roaches and cicadas,
or croaking frogs…
Then there are those sounds that make existence
more alienating and unbearable,
like the scuffle of a big insect against a window or a door
as if committing suicide!
Or a creaking rusty door
we close behind a departing loved one,
knowing deep inside that they won’t return
and nothing would be the same
after closing that door..
The whistling sound of a kettle
declaring that peace and tranquility
are illusions that never last…
There are also those sounds
that summarize the traumas of the past
from which hearers never recover,
like the screams and cries
of the woman next door when beaten by her husband…
The coughing, spitting, and heavy breathing
of an elderly woman
we visited in our childhood…
And can we ever forget
the sounding sirens of the ships and trains
declaring that departure is inevitable?

[Original poem published in Arabic on September 15, 2023 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“Quality of education and employment is like a politician's promise—sounds amazing during the campaign, but once elected, it vanishes into thin air, leaving us with a circus full of clowns juggling our dimes.”
― Dipti Dhakul