Overhearing Quotes

A poem is a private story, after all, no matter how apparently public. The reader is always overhearing a confession. ~ Jorie Graham

See, I always forget this about you," he says, and even now, long after we first lost our privacy, I can't help wondering who's overhearing him. "Every decade, you like to pin me to the ground, pull open my mouth, and take a sh** right into it. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

Tom, I wonder' - upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped forth into the light and said, 'Louisa, never wonder! ~ Anonymous

A suburban pastor maintained services appropriate for his respected, professional parish. His father, an excitable traveling evangelist, visited and challenged the congregation to confront pride and sing out loudly with the windows open. The next day, the pastor's banker mentioned overhearing, and he was sheepish. The buttoned-up banker said, though, that the neighborhood had been WAITING TO HEAR the church live out the joy they claimed. ~ David Wilkerson

Don't worry," I say, putting a PG Tips tea bag in her mug. "It's been happening for years. It's not getting worse. Besides, I'm not hearing voice, I'm overhearing them. I just don't know what they are saying. ~ Abigail Thomas

Rebecca Lindenberg thinks of poetry as the practice of overhearing yourself. Rebecca Lindneberg thinks about love. About ribbons unspooling. ~ Rebecca Lindenberg

I couldn't help overhearing," he went on. "Grrr," said Emerson. (I assure you, there is really no other way of reproducing this sound.) "Honestly. ~ Elizabeth Peters

Though now even less than ever given to wonder he cannot but sometimes wonder if it is indeed to and of him the voice is speaking. May not there be another with him in the dark to and of whom the voice is speaking? Is he not perhaps overhearing a communication not intended for him? If he is alone on his back in the dark why does the voice not say so? Why does it never say for example, you saw the light on such and such a day and now you are alone on your back in the dark? Why? Perhaps for no other reason than to kindle in his mind this faint uncertainty and embarrassment. ~ Samuel Beckett

I was bartending when I recorded 'Same Love,' and when it was on the radio, too. I remember overhearing people talking about the song while I was making them drinks. ~ Mary Lambert

You felt like a beast, but you weren't simply one. Once you accepted the pregnancy was yours to bear, you did become vigilant. They were to grow. You were to tend them. But you were mystified by other women's joyfulness at your condition. You remembered overhearing, as a girl, their talk of how a young woman would hear a coo one day that would turn her soft and make her want a baby. Such a thing had never happened to you. ~ Ronlyn Domingue

With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when [she] would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory's grip, when overhearing a mother on the street call after her child by [his] name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now, when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion
like the phantom pain of an amputee. ~ Khaled Hosseini

I don't live with earplugs. I don't like the spotlight - but I like overhearing conversations. ~ Louise Gluck

Since I was a small child, I have always tried to maintain my dignity in every situation. At work now, I strive to maintain my professional dignity. At home, with Thomas, I strive to maintain a certain parental dignity, to protect him from overhearing anything that might upset him, or anything untoward. Therefore, because it feels undignified, I have never enjoyed the feeling of anyone else worrying about me or being concerned for my well-being, preferring instead to give the impression that I am always fine, and that I have everything under control. Largely, I believe this image to be an honest one. ~ Liz Moore

I don't remember having one conversation with my dad in the three days I was home, but looking back at my journal, I see I wrote about him. I scrawled about how I heard him telling my mom that I needed to go back. I was unhappy; he thought the hiking was better for me.
I wonder why he told these things to my mother, nothing to me.

I wonder if overhearing his approval encouraged me to finally fly back to the trail. Maybe. Maybe my father's faith in my walk - in me - made me feel strong enough to leave. His actual words, as I wrote them in my notebook, were, "She's an adult now, she can do what she wants. It doesn't mean she's not selfish." He almost understood. ~ Aspen Matis

We were standing near the Lollipop Forest when we realized that Santa is an anagram of Satan ... Overhearing the customers we would substitute the Satan for the world Santa. ~ David Sedaris

Poetry is the art of overhearing ourselves say things from which it is impossible to retreat. ~ David Whyte

I don't like seeing you hit."
"Well, to be quite honest, I don't like being hit unless it's by you." As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized what I had said. "That sounded all sorts of wrong."
"Insanely so, actually."
"To be clear," I said to any overhearing ears, "I hit him back
"
"Hard."
"It's a very give-and-take, non-abuse type hitting situation ... "
The sides of Liam's mouth folded up like an accordion. "You should probably stop now."
"I'm trying. My mouth keeps moving of its own accord. ~ Tammy Blackwell

We have probably all seen teachers who would pick a student up by the scruff of the neck for saying 'Shit,' but who would walk by without a word when overhearing that same student taunting a classmate, calling him a 'fag.' It is often easier not to intervene - even when there is a clear-cut victim. It's out in the hall. It isn't our business. It isn't our problem.

But our inactions, like our actions, define who we are and what are true values are. ~ Richard H. Eyster

Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one's mind comes to inhabit the material fully. ~ Ted Solotaroff

The Robertsons' goal was never to be known as TV stars (except maybe Uncle Si, but, hey, he's nuts - in a good way). In fact, I wasn't even convinced the show would actually happen until I looked out my window one morning and saw cameramen running through my brother Willie's front yard like bees swarming to a hive. I'll never forget overhearing what one of the cameramen whispered to a technician on the first day of filming. He was sad that the show would probably tear our family apart. I remember thinking to myself, He hasn't met my family. He didn't know that the only kind of stardom my family and I are interested in is the lifestyle in Christ as described in Philippians 2:15 - 16: "Children of God . . . [that] shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. ~ Jase Robertson

Overhearing our conversation, Patrick steps closer, stroking the flogger up and down my arm. It feels so soft with the potential for pain clearly hidden. "I promise I won't hurt you. Well, unless you want me to. ~ Lainie Suzanne

To the jumpers overhearing the conversation it was obvious - Troop had come down with another case of dragon fever. The Don Quixote of smokejumping was once again engaged in mortal combat with this, his latest windmill. ~ Murry A. Taylor