Inharmonious Sounds Quotes

I also don't believe that whatever come after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions-that sounds too much like an Erudite afterlife to me, all accuracy and no feeling. ~ Veronica Roth

A story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes. ~ George Orwell

He saw nothing but the gentle ruffling of the leaves in the wind, but as he finished his sweep of the area, he somehow knew.
"Sophie!"
He heard a gasp, followed by a huge flurry of activity.
"Sophie Beckett," he yelled, "if you run from me right now, I swear I will follow you,and I will not take the time to don my clothing."
The noises coming from the shore slowed.
"I will catch up with you," he continued, "because I'm stronger and faster. And I might very well feel compelled to tackle you to the ground, just to be certain you do not escape."
The sounds of her movements ceased.
"Good," he grunted. "Show yourself."
She didn't.
"Sophie," he warned.
There was a beat of silence, followed by the sound of slow, hesitant footsteps, and then he saw her, standing on the shore in one of those awful dresses he'd like to see sunk to the bottom of the Thames.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"I went for a walk.What are you doing here?" she countered. "You're supposed to be ill.That-" she waved her arm toward him and, by extension, the pond- "can't possibly be good for you."
He ignored her question and comment. "Were you following me?"
"Of course not," she replied, and he rather believed her. He didn't think she possessed the acting talents to fake that level of righteousness.
"I would never follow you to a swimming hole," she continued. "It would be indecent."
And then her face went completely red, beca ~ Julia Quinn

Did you think you could treat me like shit at a dance, then sneak into my room in the middle of the night and tell me that I'm a troll with magical powers, and I'd just be like, yeah, that sounds right. ~ Amanda Hocking

Ifemelu decided to stop faking an American accent on a sunlit day in July, the same day she met Blaine. It was convincing, the accent. She had perfected, from careful watching of friends and newscasters, the blurring of the t, the creamy roll of the r, the sentences starting with "so," and the sliding response of "oh really," but the accent creaked with consciousness, it was an act of will. It took an effort, the twisting of lip, the curling of tongue. If she were in a panic, or terrified, or jerked awake during a fire, she would not remember how to produce those American sounds. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Music endures and ages far better than books. Books, made of words, are unavoidably attached to ideas, events, conflict, and history, but music has the power to transcend time. At least for a time. Palestrina sounds as fresh today as he did in 1555, but Dante, only three centuries older, already smells of the archaic, the medieval, the catacombs. ~ Edward Abbey

He could have had his choice of any woman in the district. And he chose solitude. Not solitude – that sounds too peaceful. More like solitary confinement. ~ Suzanne Collins

As a young woman, I schooled my romantic sensibilities on the most impossible examples. "Romeo and Juliet" is one of my favorites. I once plotted out the length of time it took them to conjoin. Four days. Four days for one of the world's greatest stories of love and marriage to play out. I do not see how that is an example for the rest of us. If every marriage on record lasted only four days, then there wouldn't be a word for infidelity. There wouldn't be a word for divorce. There wouldn't be time for anything but sex and adoration. Sounds like a charming recipe. I just have trouble practicing it in extension. ~ Wendy Plump

I think that if you are sticking to the text, essentially, you're not trying to write your own version of it. I mean, of course, it is your own version of it. And every translator would probably have a different version. But I think that that's what keeps the writers from being individual in English. They may be my English, but I don't think that Ferrante sounds like Levi. ~ Ann Goldstein

The task is to investigate speech sounds in relation to the meanings with which they are invested, i.e., sounds viewed as signifiers, and above all to throw light on the structure of the relation between sounds and meaning. ~ Roman Jakobson

They proved that it was possible to produce beauty in life by surrounding life with
beauty. They discovered that symmetrical bodies were built by souls continuously in the presence of
symmetrical bodies; that noble thoughts were produced by minds surrounded by examples of mental
nobility. Conversely, if a man were forced to look upon an ignoble or asymmetrical structure it would
arouse within him a sense of ignobility which would provoke him to commit ignoble deeds. If an illproportioned building were erected in the midst of a city there would be ill-proportioned children born in
that community; and men and women, gazing upon the asymmetrical structure, would live inharmonious
lives. Thoughtful men of antiquity realized that their great philosophers were the natural products of the
aesthetic ideals of architecture, music, and art established as the standards of the cultural systems of the time. ~ Manly P. Hall

It's not about retro or modern, it's about this note or that note, which sounds better? ~ Dan Hicks

I do and re-do things that I used to do in a flash, because I want to be more perfectionist about these things. Maybe it sounds pompous and pretentious, but that's the way I feel. ~ Manolo Blahnik

He leaned towards the young man, his eyes, mouth and face all round in concentration. '"There was a banned crow,"' he intoned sonorously. '"There was a cold day." Not bad, eh? I learned those on the boat. Sounds like perfect Urdu, I'm told.' He paused and frowned. 'The devil of it is remembering which one means, "close the door," and which one will get someone to open it. ~ Shashi Tharoor

Call me cynical if you like. But it all sounds a bit too convenient. The Authorized Version of events leaves out a number of details, which Creationists seem content to ignore. I personally have my doubts – not least about the giant cow – although even now you have to beware of how you express these sentiments. ~ Joanne Harris

i wore red lipstick to the grocery store last Monday
to buy a carton off eggs and so when the cashier told
me that my eyes reminded him of the ocean, i asked
if he's ever drowned in his own sadness, he said my
total was $1.89 and that he didn't know what i meant,
i payed in quarters and told him i was an Art major,
i told him my boyfriend was a musician and we were
saving up for an apartment in the city and how i'd
use the walls as canvases and how he'd play his
piano on Sunday mornings when the rain tasted like
salt, and i told him that i had my first art opening in
three weeks and he should stop by and i'd introduce
him to this friend i had named Lolita who was really
good in bed, he thought i was insane and i wonder
if he knew how many times i've cried in the shower
with my make up smeared and my eyes swollen shut,
he said "yeah, yeah, sounds good, have a nice day"
and i wonder if he'll ever know i wanted to really be
a poet and that's why when some man in the parking
lot asked if i had a lighter, i dropped my eggs while
stumbling to find one, and cried on the way home ~ Irynka

Daily alone time
My ability to embrace stillness and meditation was the momentum swing in my health transformation. I breathed in and out with the musical sounds of the Pacific Ocean. I breathed in life, energy, and the universe and as I breathed out, I felt every red and white blood cell washing the cancer cells out to sea with the waves. ~ Gregory Q. Cheek

If you're focused on the friendship as its own reward, serendipitous stuff just happens. I know that sounds weird, but I can tell you for our 12 years of existence, it's actually how a lot of stuff happens. ~ Tony Hsieh

There's no working radio tower in the country. It's all static," she said, without looking to him. "I know. But 102.3 plays the best. Not too tinny. Full and robust. If a cello were to perform static, it would sound like this." She shook her head and turned the dial. "I prefer 93.9," she said. She still hadn't looked at him. "It's too thin and monotone. There's no variation. It just sounds like static." "And that's why I like it," she said. "It sounds like static is supposed to sound. ~ Anthony Marra

You have to stop looking at me like that." He sounds amused, "or else I will have to take you up to my suite right now, and have you for lunch"
I sigh at the image, "Why don't you?" I whisper. It's exactly what I want. ~ Serena Grey

Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ear lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently - possibly almost invariably - analytical and impersonal test will show that when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep. ~ Charles Ives

For a long while, he sat on the steps and sharpened the chain-saw blade with a round file, dipping it in bar-and-chain oil and raking it over each tooth with sleek, grating sounds. He lost himself in the rhythm of the labor. A victory over tears is a small thing, but it was his. The sky went from indigo to blackness, and he saw nothing ominous in it, nothing but cold stars wheeling in their course, a course determined by the same firm hand he hoped was guiding his own. But satellites, too, crossed the sky in sly, winking arcs. Sull knew that. He could not let himself be confounded. He went inside, to sleep beside his wife. ~ Matthew Neill Null

Julián didn't want to regain his love, since he had stopped loving her a long time ago. He had stopped loving her one second before he began loving her. It sounds strange, but that's how he feels: instead of loving Karla, he had loved the possibility of love, and then the imminence of love. He had loved the idea of a form moving beneath dirty white sheets. ~ Alejandro Zambra

They sang the words in unison, yet somehow created a web of sounds with their voices. It was like hearing a piece of fabric woven with all the colors of a rainbow. I did not know that such beauty could be formed by the human mouth. I had never heard harmony before. ~ Anita Diamant

Reece's face loomed over me. "Pepper? Pepper?"
He sounded so panicked. I wanted to tell him everything was going to be all right. That I was fine. I wanted to thank him for coming, for giving me the strength to keep going, to keep fighting.
I wanted to say all these things. All these things and more. But I couldn't. I couldn't catch my breath. My hand drifted to my chest, as though I could find some switch there to help open up my oxygen-starved lungs.
There was no switch.
I wheezed, terrible little sounds escaping my lips as I struggled for more air. Spots danced before my eyes, and I hated that most of all. The edges of my vision grayed. I could barely see Reece anymore. My gaze strained, as if struggling to memorize his face. Overheated and marred with soot, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I could hear him, though, screaming my name again and again. Could feel him. His hands on my arms, my face.
My vision went dark, and just before that darkness rolled in on my mind, I got out two words. Just two words. But they were good ones. I hoped he heard them.
"Love. You. ~ Sophie Jordan

her legs and lifted. "Well, for starters, I thought we could take that bath you were talking about." "And then?" "We'll see where the night takes us." "As long as it takes us someplace together, I'm fine with an adventure," Ivy offered. "We might want to grab the pie first, though. I've never eaten pie in a bathtub and that somehow sounds magical to me." "I love the way your mind works." "You just want the pie." "I just want you and the pie. I'm a simple man." "And yet you complicate everything in my life and make it so much better." Jack's heart warmed at her words. "Right back at you, honey. Now grab that pie. It's time for a Thanksgiving treat. I have a feeling this is going to be one for the record books." "That makes two of us. ~ Lily Harper Hart

I know it sounds crazy, but I have had far more connection with my parents after their deaths. ~ Lynn Johnston

At the core, coaching authenticity is complicated - some might say impossible. Telling someone to be authentic sounds pretty low calorie, especially to a founder plowing through a list of product and operational goals. But it's important. ~ Scott Weiss

Besides…where Rincewind went' – he lowered his voice – 'trouble followed behind.'
Ridcully noticed that the wizards drew a little closer together.
'Sounds all right to me,' he said. 'Best place for trouble, behind. ~ Terry Pratchett

Slow and steady wins the race."
"That is almost always untrue."
"Take it up with Aesop."
"Aesop never existed. The stories credited to him were the work of two female slaves."
"That sounds about typical. I'll ponder it on the way down. ~ Leigh Bardugo

It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by incredibilities ... ~ Samuel Johnson