The Chimes Quotes

In December ring Every day the chimes; Loud the gleemen sing In the streets their merry rhymes. Let us by the fire Ever higher Sing them till the night expire! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I wanted to freeze this moment forever, the chimes, the slight splash of water, the chink of dogs' leashes, laughter from the pool, the skritch of my mother's dip-pen, the smell of the tree, the stillness. I wished I could shut it in a locket to wear around my neck. I ~ Janet Fitch

My father was always anxious to give pleasure to his children. Accordingly, he took me one day, as a special treat, to the top of the grand old tower, to see the chimes played. ~ James Nasmyth

Those nights when the future seemed to last only till the morning and he would count off the hours, one by one, by the chimes of distant church bells. ~ Paolo Giordano

It had had a fragrant element, reminding him of a regular childhood experience, a memory that reverberated like the chimes of a prayer bell inside his head. For a few moments, he pictured the old Orthodox church that had dominated his remote Russian village. The bearded priest was swinging the elaborate incense-burner, suspended from gold-plated chains. It had been the same odour. Hadn't it? He blinked, shook his head. He couldn't make sense of that.
He decided, with an odd lack of enthusiasm, that he'd imagined it. The effects of the war played tricks of the mind, of the senses. Looking over his shoulder, he counted all seven of his men as they emerged from the remnants of the four-storey civic office building.
A few muddied documents were scattered on the ground, stamped with the official Nazi Party eagle, its head turned to the left, and an emblem he failed to recognize, but which looked to him like a decorative wheel, with a geometrical design of squares at its centre. Even a blackened flag had survived the bomb damage. Hanging beneath a crumbling windowsill, the swastika flapped against the bullet-ridden façade, the movement both panicky and defiant, Pavel thought.
His men were conscripts. A few still wore their padded khaki jackets and mustard-yellow blouses. Most, their green field tunics and forage caps. All the clothing was lice-ridden and smeared with soft ash. Months of exposure to frozen winds had darkened their skins and narrowed their eyes. They'd ~ Gary Haynes

In the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales for the disrobed faceless forms of no position. Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts - all down in taken-for-granted situations. Tolling for the deaf an' blind, tolling for the mute, and the mistreated mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute, for the misdemeanor outlaw, chained an' cheated by pursuit. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing. ~ Bob Dylan

Big Ben ... hearing the chimes makes me feel at home. ~ Jane Birkin

And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb--on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost--climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!--for it seems at times, as though the ear also possessed a sight of its own,--behold, rising from each bell tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the vibration of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell they melt together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate in a magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of sonorous vibrations incessantly sent forth from the numerous belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of its oscillations.

Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold the windings of each group of notes which escapes from the belfries. ~ Victor Hugo

This was why he couldn't let Richard know it was the chimes themselves that were loose. Richard would not have accepted what Zedd intended, what Zedd knew he must do. ~ Terry Goodkind

Fanfare for the Makers

A cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what?
To the small fire that never leaves the sky.
To the great fire that boils the daily pot.

To all the things we are not remembered by,
Which we remember and bless. To all the things
That will not notice when we die,

Yet lend the passing moment words and wings.

So fanfare for the Makers: who compose
A book of words or deeds who runs may write
As many who do run, as a family grows

At times like sunflowers turning towards the light.
As sometimes in the blackout and the raids
One joke composed an island in the night.

As sometimes one man's kindness pervades
A room or house or village, as sometimes
Merely to tighten screws or sharpen blades

Can catch a meaning, as to hear the chimes
At midnight means to share them, as one man
In old age plants an avenue of limes

And before they bloom can smell them, before they span
The road can walk beneath the perfected arch,
The merest greenprint when the lives began

Of those who walk there with him, as in default
Of coffee men grind acorns, as in despite
Of all assaults conscripts counter assault,

As mothers sit up late night after night
Moulding a life, as miners day by day
Descend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kite

In an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers play
The ~ Louis MacNeice

The voice of Time, ' said the Phantom, 'cries to man, Advance! Time is for his advancement and improvement; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his better life; his progress onward to that goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the period when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have come and gone--millions uncountable, have suffered, lived, and died-- to point the way before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder, ever, for its momentary check! ~ Charles Dickens

And she laughed, a full octave, descending from high C like chimes. ~ Mary Doria Russell

Uh-oh," Brynna says. "Here comes Caleb."
"Caleb, I'd like to introduce - "
"Fine," says Caleb, Brynna's husband, holding his hand up for me to stop talking. "I know who you are. And I don't give a flying fuck. If you hurt her, I'll kill you and make it look like you did it to yourself, do you understand me?"
"Well, that's lovely," I mutter. "And unnecessary."
"He's here?" Will chimes in, hurrying over. "Dude, we'll kill you. But welcome. ~ Kristen Proby

In bleakest times
In darkest climbs
When wind blows cold in skies above

When suns won't shine
And True Dark chimes
Still I'll return to thee, my love

Ever return to thee, true love ~ Jay Kristoff

Her laugh sounds like wind chimes. ~ Emery Lord

It's not a purse, Rose," Connor chimes in, his lips rising. "It's your future." His amusement is palpable. ~ Krista Ritchie

Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime! ~ Charles Lamb

I'll say she's brave," Grandma chimes in. "She's going to England day after tomorrow to hump some guy she barely knows. ~ Meg Cabot

Wind chimes are also earthquake chimes. ~ Demetri Martin

I personally think 'Chimes of Midnight' is a much better film than 'Citizen Kane.' ~ Christian McKay

A new heart for a New Year, always! ~ Charles Dickens

Josey was a different person than she was even a month ago. She reminded Margaret so much now of Marco's cousins from Italy. They'd shown up in Bald Slope without warning once, early in Marco and Margaret's wedding. They were magical women, with their long curly hair, large breasts and movements like dancers. Their bracelets sounded like wind chimes when they walked. Margaret had been fascinated by them. Marco had ushered them out within hours of their arrival and taken them to Asheville for their stay. He was ashamed of them, their earthiness and sensuality, of their provincial ways. No one from Italy ever visited again. ~ Sarah Addison Allen