Thud Quotes

In the 1970s, a group of researchers got themselves deliberately confined to mental asylums across United States. They did this by pretending to hear voices. They pretended to hear a voice saying, Empty, Dull and Thud.
But as soon as they were admitted to the wards, they stopped pretending and never mention the voice again.
And here's the mad part
The hospital staff outright refused to believe they were better, and kept them locked up anyway - some of them for months on end -each forced into accepting they had a mental illness, and agreeing to take drugs as a condition of their release. This is what labels do. They stick. ~ Nathan Filer

Did you hear how his head bounced down the steps? Thud, splat, thud, splat. ~ Nalini Singh

Once assured that we'd lost our tail, I plummeted down into a nearby field, landing with a skidding thud.
Bones dropped to the ground next to me without so much as a bent stem of grass to show for it. One day I'd master landing that gracefully. For now, I did well not to leave a small crater in my wake. ~ Jeaniene Frost

Agnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed.

It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook.
It rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor.

The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one.
As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude.

There were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the ballet school with a million fractured images.
Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of quartz danced briefly...

Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle.
Nanny grinned.
'Ah,' she said, 'now the opera's over. ~ Terry Pratchett

There was a click. There was a noise like a partridge. There was a thud.
There was silence. ~ Terry Pratchett

Another time, I was at the bar getting a drink and this geezer is stood at the bar with a ciggie in his mouth, trying his best to look rock hard. He takes a drag and points his finger in my face and drawls, 'Don't I know you?'
He was looking snake-eyed at me like a typical big screen gangster.
I stood in front of him and drawled back, 'I don't know, but they call me Richy Horsley,' and then bang, I batter him with a left hook that landed with a strange dull thud. Mr Movie Gangster was stood there leaning against the bar and staring out in to space, knocked out standing up. ~ Stephen Richards

Stop!" she called out.
To a one, the crewmen froze. A dozen heads swiveled to face her.
Sophia swallowed and turned to Mr. Grayson. "What about me? I'm also a virgin voyager."
His lips quirked as his gaze swept her from head to toe and then back up partway. "Are you truly?"
"Yes. And I haven't a coin to my name. Do you plan to dunk and shave me, too?"
"Now there's an idea." His grin widened. "Perhaps. But first, you must submit to an interrogation."
A lump formed in Sophia's throat, impossible to speak around.
Mr. Grayson raised that sonorous baritone to a carrying pitch. "What's your name then, miss?" When Sophia merely firmed her chin and glared at him, he warned dramatically, "Truth or eels."
Bang.
Excited whispers crackled through the assembly of sailors. Davy was completely forgotten, dropped to the deck with a dull thud. Even the wind held its breath in anticipation, and Sophia gave a slight jump when a sail smacked limp against the mast.
Though her heart pounded an erratic rhythm of distress, she willed her voice to remain even. "I've no intention of submitting myself to any interrogation, by god or man." She lifted her chin and arched an eyebrow. "And I'm not impressed by your staff."
She paused several seconds, waiting for the crew's boisterous laughter to ebb.
Mr. Grayson pinned her with his bold, unyielding gaze. "You dare to speak to me that way? I'm Triton." With each word, he stepped closer. "King of th ~ Tessa Dare

It was no mean trick doing the wiring with those mittens on. But I managed it and crawled out, batting spiders into the shadows. I could hear a thud as they hit the floor joists, then a scuttling sound, then, worst of all, the silence of spiders. ~ Bailey White

He immediately went down with a thud and I was pretty certain most of the furniture in the room jumped when he landed. ~ Kristen Ashley

Pressed up against him, I can feel the thud of his heart against mine, his ribcase expanding and contracting rapidly against my chest, the warm whisper of his breath tickling the side of my neck, the brush of his leg against my thigh. Resting my arms on his shoulders, I pull back a little to get a look at his face. But he isn't smiling any more. ~ Tabitha Suzuma

His arm slid around my shoulders and drew me to him. It was odd, sitting there under the veil of darkness, watching the neighborhood settle down. Lamps burned in windows. TVs flickered. A few houses down, the rhythmic thud of a basketball on concrete and muffled laughter alerted us to the only other people outside on this glorious fall night.

"This is a perfect date," I said.

He tensed. "You'd call it a date?"

"Sure. You wouldn't?"

He looked down at me, his eyes glittering in the faint light. "I thought American girls liked more formality in a date."

"More money is what you mean." I smiled. "It's a date. Don't argue with me."

"I never do. ~ Elizabeth Langston

You're a talking cat?" Endora asked with a look of disbelief on her face.
"My, my, my, aren't you the bright bulb of the bunch," he replied with a bit of snarky smugness. "Tell me then, bright-bulb, do you suppose that I need your permission to talk just because I'm a cat?" He raised his paw to his face, admiring his newly gnawed manicure. After he observed the last nail, he slapped his paw down on the floorboards, making a low thud sound. "Because I don't," he smirked.
Endora was taken by surprise at his rudeness. She stared back at him, speechless and not quite sure how to respond.
"Are you a magic cat?" Mila busted in with a question that seemed as silly to her as to the cat.
He glared and narrowed his eyes at her. "A magic cat," he said, standing up to arch his furry back. "Is my talking some sort of magic to you? If it is… then I am." He stretched his back higher and let out a long purr that turned into, "Purrhaps, you four little witchy girls should clearly refine your meaning of magic so you know what it means before you say the word magic."
"I rather am quite fond of talking cats," Selena said with a big smile. "Of course, you're the first one I've ever seen."
The cat narrowed its eyes tighter. "Indeed," he said, letting out a yawn as if the whole conversation were a bore. He leapt off the porch and dash away, mumbling and grumbling his way down the corridor.
Selena looked over at Endora. "Rude little snot, isn't he?" she said. ~ Sophie Palmer

of my hand and hit the floor with a thud. ~ Rick Riordan

Beside himself with shame and despair, the utterly ruined though perfectly just Mr. Golyadkin dashed headlong away, wherever fate might lead him; but with every step he took, with every thud of his foot on the granite of the pavement, there leapt up as though out of the earth a Mr. Golyadkin precisely the same, perfectly alike, and of a revolting depravity of heart. And all these precisely similar Golyadkins set to running after one another as soon as they appeared, and stretched in a long chain like a file of geese, hobbling after the real Mr. Golyadkin, so there was nowhere to escape from these duplicates - so that Mr. Golyadkin, who was in every way deserving of compassion, was breathless with terror; so that at last a terrible multitude of duplicates had sprung into being; so that the whole town was obstructed at last by duplicate Golyadkins, and the police officer, seeing such a breach of decorum, was obliged to seize all these duplicates by the collar and to put them into the watch-house, which happened to be beside him . . . Numb and chill with horror, our hero woke up, and numb and chill with horror felt that his waking state was hardly more cheerful . . . It was oppressive and harrowing . . . He was overcome by such anguish that it seemed as though some one were gnawing at his heart. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The falling apart of a man's life should make more noise. It should startle passesrby with its Sturm and Drang. It ought to sound like the Parthenon crashing down. Not this ordinary, everyday kind of quiet ... He closed his eyes ... And still it was quiet, this falling apart of his life, as silent as the last beat of an old man's heart. A quiet, echoing thud, and then ... nothing. ~ Kristin Hannah

Between the ink mage and the wizard, his mouth falling open at the sight. The hulk had nearly let her go after Talbun's shock attack, but he recovered quickly and took her head in his meaty hands. Don't. With appalling ease, the ink mage twisted. The snap was so loud, it made Brasley flinch even from across the chamber. His mouth fell open to scream. "No!" The brute's mouth twisted into a contemptuous grin as he let the limp body fall from his hands. Brasley watched it happen in slow motion, almost like she was floating, eyes closed, face peaceful, hair floating up around her. It was as if life had been some tremendous weight, and now that it was gone, her shell drifted down to the floor like a dry leaf. Talbun's body hit with a dull thud that brought Brasley back to reality. ~ Victor Gischler

She had loved before, had been loved, had tasted what it was to dream, and had felt what it was to dance on air. She had also learned what it was to cruelly land back on the earth with a thud. Having to take care of her sister's child had sent her love away and there had been no one since. She had learned not to lose control of her feelings again. ~ Cecelia Ahern

What the hell are you doing up there?'
So he slipped, of course, because he was startled, and because fate, having been so kind to him as to award him this ecstasy, retributively was going to kill him now. He lost his footing and grabbed for the chimney but missed. Head over thighs he rolled out like a child's toy, smashed into the poking branches of the damn pear tree, which probably saved his life, breaking his fall. He landed with a thud on a bed of lettuces, and the wind was knocked out of him, mortifyingly so, through all available orifices.
Oh, brilliant,' said the voice. 'The trees are dropping their fruits early this year. ~ Gregory Maguire

Now Doon seemed to care for his new friends more than he did for her. Every time she thought about him she felt a thud of pain, like a bruised place inside her. ~ Jeanne DuPrau

Maybe he was as mad as he said he was, but she could see only a species of miserable fright. Suddenly, like the thud of a boxing glove on her mouth, she saw how close to the edge of everything he was. The agency was tottering, that was bad enough, and now, on top of that, like a grisly dessert following a putrid main course, his marriage was tottering too. She felt a rush of warmth for him, for this man she had sometimes hated and had, for the last three hours at least, feared. A kind of epiphany filled her. Most of all, she hoped he would always think he had been as mad as hell, and not ... not the way his face said he felt. ~ Stephen King

could feel the thud of his heartbeat in my ear as it echoed through the bones of his chest. Its quick, steady pounding soothed ~ Celina Grace

pulled into a dark tunnel. I found myself hurtling down an almost vertical dirt path, skipping over rocks and dirt patches like Indiana Jones until I hit bottom with a thud. Six years as a private investigator and I'd never fallen down a tree before. I caught my breath, got to my feet and dusted myself off. Good thing I never dress up for work. My old jeans and boots were none the worse for wear. I was wondering how I'd get back up to the surface when I noticed the flicker of golden sconces on ~ Linsey Lanier

Suddenly, at about ten o'clock, a dull thud sounded somewhere far away from us, and simultaneously we saw a small white round cloud about half a mile ahead of us where the shrapnel had exploded. The battle had begun. ~ Fritz Kreisler

When the Bolide Fragmentation Rate shot up through a certain level on Day 701, marking the formal beginning of the White Sky, a number of cultural organizations launched programs that they had been planning since around the time of the Crater Lake announcement. Many of these were broadcast on shortwave radio, and so Ivy had her pick of programs from Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Tiananmen Square, the Potala Palace, the Great Pyramids, the Wailing Wall.

After sampling all of them she locked her radio dial on Notre Dame, where they were holding the Vigil for the End of the World and would continue doing so until the cathedral fell down in ruins upon the performers' heads and extinguished all life in the remains of the building. She couldn't watch it, since video bandwidth was scarce, but she could imagine it well: the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, its ranks swollen by the most prestigious musicians of the Francophone world, all dressed in white tie and tails, ball gowns and tiaras, performing in shifts around the clock, playing a few secular classics but emphasizing the sacred repertoire: masses and requiems. The music was marred by the occasional thud, which she took to be the sonic booms of incoming bolides. In most cases the musicians played right through. Sometimes a singer would skip a beat. An especially big boom produced screams and howls of dismay from the audience, blended with the clank an ~ Neal Stephenson

Usually they are quick to discover that I cannot see or hear ... It is not training but love which impels them to break their silence about me with the thud of a tail rippling against my chair on gambols round the study, or news conveyed by expressive ear, nose, and paw. Often I yearn to give them speech, their motions are so eloquent with things they cannot say. ~ Helen Keller

Down the hall I could hear the thud of basketballs, the blare of the time-out horn, and the shouts of the crowd as the sports-beasts fought: Lisbon Greyhounds versus Jay Tigers.
Who can know when life hangs in the balance, or why? ~ Stephen King

If the scrapes were on the front of our knees, she would put our dirty feet in the middle of her chest to clean the wounds, and we could feel her heart beating, strong as the thud of the ground when we walked, through our soles. ~ Jesmyn Ward

But he had never seen Myrna in practice...never that close up. He had been impressed and a little frightened by the contrast between seeing ballet on stange, where everyone seemed to either glide or mince effortlessly on the tips of their pointes. and seeing it from less than five feet away, with harsh daylight pouring in the floor-to-ceiling windows and no music- only the choreographer rythmically clapping his hands and yelling harsh criticisms. No praise, only criticisms. Their faces ran with sweat. Their leotards were wet with sweat. The room, as large and airy as it way, stank of sweat. Sleek muscles trembled and fluttered on the nervous edge of exhaustion. Corded tendons stood out like insulated cables. Throbbing veins popped out on foreheads and necks. Except for the choreographer's clapping and angry, hectoring shouts, the only sounds were the thrup-thud of ballet dancers on pointe moving across the floor and harsh, agonized panting for breath. Jack had suddenly realized that these dancers were not just earning a living, they were killing themselves. Most of all he remembered their expressions- all that exhausted concentration, all that pain... but transcending the pain, or at least creeping around its edges, he had seen joy. Joy was unmistakably what that look was, and it scared Jack because it had seemed inexplicable. ~ Stephen King

I instinctively reached out to steady her. Unfortunately for both of us, at that precise moment she shifted her weight to catch her balance. Our foreheads collided with a painful thud, and worse - much, much worse - it's entirely possible that my lips brushed against hers in the process.
'Did he just try to kiss me?' she demanded loudly. ~ Sebastien De Castell

See!" Dad yelled. "Boys don't stay with whores, Bianca. They leave them. And I'm not going to let you turn into a whore. Not my daughter. This is for your own good."
I looked up as he reached a hand down to grab my arm. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to feel his fingers clamp around my forearm.
But they never did.
I heard a loud thud, and Dad grunted in pain. My eyes flew open. Wesley moved away from Dad, who was massaging his jaw with a shocked look on his face. "Why you little shithead!"
"Are you all right?" Wesley asked, kneeling in front of me.
"Did you just punch my dad?" I couldn't help but wonder if I was delirious. Had all of this really just happened? Totally bizarre.
"Yes," Wesley admitted.
"How dare you touch me!" Dad screamed, but he was having trouble balancing enough to approach us again. "How dare you fuck my daughter, then hit me, you son of a bitch!"
I'd never heard my father swear like that before.
"Come on," Wesley said, helping me to my feet. "Let's get out of here. You're coming with me." He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close against his warm body, and ushered me out the open door. ~ Kody Keplinger

When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts ... it's like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Can I tell you something without it going to your head?" Shelby murmured as she ran her fingers down his chest, over his ribs.
"Probably not." His voice had thickened from the pleasure of being touched. "I'm reasily flattered."
"In my workroom..." Shelby pressed her lips to his chest and felt his heartbeat thud faster against them. "When I messed up your shirt and you took it off to rinse it? I turned around and saw you-I wanted to get my hands on you like this." She ran her palms up,then down again to where his waist narrowed. "Just like this,I nearly did."
Alan felt his blood start to pound-in his head, his heart,his loins. "I wouldn't have put up much of a fight."
"If I'd decided to have you, Senator," she murmured on a sultry laugh, "you wouldn't have had a chance."
"Is that so?"
Shelby ran her tongue down his rib cage. "Mmm," she said when she heard the small, quick intake of breath. "Just so.A MacGregor will always buckle under to a Campbell."
Alan started to form a retort, then her fingers skimmed his thigh. As a politician, he knew the value of a debate-but sometimes they didn't require words.She could have the floor first. ~ Nora Roberts

Smaller markets teams, when you hit bottom, you hit with a thud. ~ Billy Beane

I felt in London the way you do when you take one step too many at the bottom of a flight of stairs: brought up short by the unexpected plateau and its dull, unyielding thud. ~ Lisa Halliday

Hey!" I bark, as loud as I can, and bring my arms above my head, trying to make myself look as large as possible. "Hey! Get out of here! Go on. Go." The bear withdraws another inch, confused, startled. "I said go." I reach out and strike against the nearest tree with my foot, sending a spray of bark in the bear's direction. As the bear still hesitates, uncertain - but not growling now, on the defensive, confused - I drop down into a crouch and scoop up the first rock I can get my fist around, and then I'm up and chucking it, hard. It connects just below the bear's left shoulder with a heavy thud. The bear shuffles backward, whimpering. Then it turns and bounds off into the woods, a fast black blur. ~ Lauren Oliver

To honour its first creation, no sound was permitted within the home of Muse for a full year, no sound save that of its Art: the slow, crisp, click of polished brass gears, the sensual hiss of pneumatic release, the insidious sibilance and decisive thud of a withdrawing and thrusting piston, and the soft groan of the boy held within the cube as each rod ran him through, over and over and over.
Powered by this action, the music box played.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down...
And another piston rammed home.
A mechanism of intricate complexity exchanging great pain for a little beauty. This, here, then, was Life.
Muse was fulfilled. ~ Cameron Rogers

I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2 a.m., gunshots muffled by a few city blocks, I am a broken window during February. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from elegance with a dull thud, and I apologize for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I don't belong around people, that I belong to all the leap days that didn't happen. The way light and darkness mix under my skin has become a storm. You don't see the lightning, but you hear the echoes. ~ Anna Peters

You're lucky you're good in
bed."
"Oh." He grabbed at my foot. "I think you keep me around for other reasons."
I slanted him a look out of the corner of my eye. "Right now, for the life of me I can't think what those reasons are."
Braden tugged harder on my foot, raising his fingers towards it. "Take it back or the foot getsit."
Oh hell no! I yanked at my appendage.
"Braden, no."
Deaf to my warning, he started to tickle me,his grip tightening as I laughed breathlessly and
kicked out, trying to get free.
He wouldn't stop. Ruthless!
"Braden," I panted hysterically, attempting to shove at him with my arms but struggling as he continued his war on my feet. I laughed harder,
ribs aching, and then… horror.
I broke wind.
Big time.
Braden immediately let go of my feet, his loud, rumbling laugh filling the room, laughter that only deepened when I lost balance, from kicking out
at him and then being abruptly let go, and fell off the couch with an undignified thud.
Mortified as he collapsed against the couch
belly laughing at my fart then fall, I grabbed a cushion and launched it at him from my position on the floor.
Of course this only made the idiot laugh
harder. I warred between feeling humiliation at farting in front of him, something you just didn't do in
company, and laughing, since his was so
infectious. "Braden!" I whined. "Shut up. It's not funny," I huffed, my lips caught i ~ Samantha Young

When rowan leaves are dank and rusting And rowan berries red as blood, When in my palm the hangman's thrusting The final nail with bony thud, When, over the foul flooding river, Upon the wet grey height, I toss Before my land's grim looks, and shiver As I swing here upon the cross, Then, through the blood and weeping, stretches My dying sight to space remote; I see upon the river's reaches Christ sailing to me in a boat. ~ Alexander Blok

His hand glides down my arm, folds over my hand. His fingers lace with mine, palms kissing. I can feel the fast thud of his heart through this single touch. ~ Sophie Jordan

Thud, thud, thud, riderless black horse with red eyes coming down the halls of his mind, ironshod hooves digging up soft gray clods of brain tissue, leaving hoofprints to fill up with mystic crescents of blood. ~ Stephen King

Well, make up your mind. I don't have all night." Fidelia set her beer on the porch and removed a set of keys from her skirt pocket. She fumbled with the key, trying to release the trigger lock on her pistol.
"Don't do that," Heather warned her. "You've had too much to drink."
Fidelia snorted. "I'm not drunk. I'm in complete control." She tore off the trigger lock.
Bang! The gun fired, ripping into a nearby oak tree.
The women screamed. Jean-Luc winced.
A squirrel plummeted from the tree and landed in the yard with a thud.
Fidelia shrugged. "I meant to do that. Damned rodent's been gnawing on the house. And stealing all the nuts from our pecan tree."
Heather planted her hands on her hips. "Haven't I told you a million times to keep the locks on?"
Fidelia hung her head, looking properly remorseful. "I'll be more careful." She switched on the safety, then shot Jean-Luc a pointed look. "I know how to deal with a scumbag with nuts. ~ Kerrelyn Sparks

A question.
So what are people supposed to do if they want to avoid a collision (thud!) but still lie in the field, enjoying the clouds drifting by, listening to the grass grow - not thinking, in other words? Sound hard? Not at all. Logically, it's easy. C'est simple. The answer is dreams. Dreaming on and on. Entering the world of dreams, and never coming out. Living in dreams for the rest of time.
In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly any collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites.
Reality, reality. ~ Haruki Murakami

Carlisle says Siobhan's super power was the ability to do whatever the hell she wanted. I swear, that's what Carlisle says. Her super power was the ability to will something into existence. Siobhan wanted the vampire Maggie to stick around with her and Liam, and, POOF, Maggie did, all because Siobhan wanted it. Dr. Cullen theorizes that Bella has a similar power. She's not acting like a typical newborn vampire because Bella decided not to be a typical newborn vampire.
That thud you heard was my brain trying to make a run for it and slamming into my skull. Also, you may hear soft weeping. I'm still crying. ~ Dan Bergstein

Book Power

Books feed and cure and
chortle and collide.

In all this willful world
of thud and thump and thunder
man's relevance to books
continues to declare.

Books are meat and medicine
and flame and flight and flower,
steel, stitch, and cloud and clout,
and drumbeats in the air. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

You are that moment before falling, the falling,
a whir of falling, a wail of falling, the sweet
thud. ~ Sandra Beasley

I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset ... almost pays for the thud. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Yet motherhood had brought me down to earth with a thud, and kept me there with tentacles made of diapers and tears and lullabies and phone calls and car pools and the sticky residue of hair spray and Barbasol all over the bathroom counter. Would i ever be able to soar again? Would I ever have the courage? Did any woman? Or did we exist only as others saw us?...I saw myself through her (my daughter's) eyes, I saw myself through Charles's eyes, always; I never looked into a mirror and saw myself through my own. ~ Melanie Benjamin

Knock, knock!" he called in a high, singsong voice.
For a moment, silence. Then a thud and a crash, as if something heavy had been hurled at the door. "Go away!" snarled the voice from within.
"Ah, no. That's not how the joke goes," called Rob. "I say 'knock, knock', and you're supposed to answer with 'who's there?'"
"Fuck off!"
Nope, that's still wrong." Robbie seemed unperturbed. I, however, was horrified at Ethan's language, though I knew it wasn't him. "Here," continued Rob in an amiable voice, "I'll go through the whole thing, so you'll know how to answer next time." He cleared his throat and pounded at the door again. "Knock, knock!" he bellowed. "Who's there? Puck! Puck who? Puck, who will turn you into a squealing pig and stuff you in the oven if you don't get out of our way!" And with that, he banged the door open. ~ Julie Kagawa

He leaned forward to inspect her closer. "Is that all hair?"
... Sudden, overwhelming panic clawed up Cress's throat. With a squeak, she ducked out of view of the camera and scrambled beneath the desk. Her back struck the wall with a thud that rattled her teeth. She crouched there, skin burning hot and pulse thundering as she took in the room before her - the room that he was now seeing too, with the rumpled bedcovers and the mustached man on all the screens telling her to grab her imaginary partner and swing them around.
"Wha - where'd she go?" Thorne's voice came to her through the screen.
"Honestly, Thorne." A girl. Linh Cinder? "Do you ever think before you speak?"
"What? What did I say?"
" 'Is that all hair?' "
"Did you see it? It was like a cross between a magpie nest and ball of yarn after it's been mauled by a cheetah."
A beat. Then, "A cheetah?"
"It was the first big cat that came to mind. ~ Marissa Meyer

Our plan depended on the Renselaeus warriors being fast and accurate and brave, for they were as outnumbered as Bran and I had been up in the mountains.
I was also, therefore, intensely aware that my life was now in the hands of people I had considered enemies not two dawns ago. Did they still consider me one?
I tried to calm my nerves by laughing at myself; for someone who so recently had tried her best to ride to her death, my innards were a pit of snakes, and my palms were sweaty despite the rain. Bran was alive, I was alive, and suddenly I wanted to stay that way. I wanted to go home and clean out the castle and replant Mama's garden. I wanted to see Oria and Julen and Khesot again, and I wanted to walk on the high peaks and dance with the Hill Folk on long summer nights, miming age-old stories to the windborne music…
I blinked. Had I just heard a reed pipe?
I lifted my head and listened, heard nothing but the thud of hooves and clatter of our accoutrements, and the soft rain in the leaves overhead. ~ Sherwood Smith

I require your assistance," a male voice whispered.
My mouth fell open.
"Ahhgaluhg!" I gagged - near drowned - on a slew of water and lost my balance. The pink shower curtain proved no leverage whatsoever, and I ripped it down with me, rod and all, slopping into the tub with a splash, irritated squeal, and shuddering thud.
"Jay - !" I stifled a scream and hissed the second syllable through clenched teeth, " - den!"
"Have you sustained injury?" Jayden's face hovered over the tub.
"Not until you showed up! ~ A. Kirk

My forehead hit the table again with a thud. Ow. The words left me in a rush.
"I'm-fucking-the-married-closeted-father-of-my-only-close-friend-in-the-entire-world-and-his-wife-is-going-to-be-here-in-two-weeks."
I heard the hiss as Robin sucked his breath in between his teeth. "Ouch."
"Yeah." I sighed, my forehead rubbing against the table as I nodded miserably. At least he didn't try to deny the idiotic part.
"You know there's absolutely no way that can end well."
"Duh. ~ Amelia C. Gormley

Some lives work better with routines, and Liv Halston's is one of them. Every weekday morning she rises at seven thirty am, pulls on her trainers, grabs her iPod, and before she can think about what she's doing, she heads down, bleary-eyed, in the rackety lift, and out for a half hour run along the river. At some point, threading her way through the grimly determined commuters, swerving round reversing delivery vans, she comes fully awake, her brain slowly wrapping itself around the musical rhythms in her ears, the soft thud-thud-thud of her feet hitting the pavement. Most importantly she has steered herself away again from a time she still fears: those initial waking minutes, when vulnerability means that loss can still strike her unheralded and venal, sending her thoughts into a toxic black fog. She had begin running after she had realized that she could use the world outside, the noise in her earphones, her own motion, as a kind of deflector, Now it has become habit, and insurance police. I do not have to think. I do not have to think. I do not have to think. ~ Jojo Moyes

Matt hit the floor with a wheeze, and then it was Ty's turn to be smug. "Gotcha."

Hell, no. They'd been at it for thirty minutes, and Matt was exhausted to the bone, but the last one down had to buy breakfast. Kicking out, he knocked Ty's feet from beneath him. Then it was Ty's turn to land with a satisfying thud.

"Jesus," Josh muttered from the weight bench.

Josh was also a good friend, but he didn't know much about having fun. He was a doctor, which left his taste for occasional recreational violence greatly diminished.

"You keep going at each other like that," Josh said, "and you'll end up in my ER."

Breathless, Matt rolled to his back. "Sorry, I only play doctor with the ladies. ~ Jill Shalvis

The word landed with a stony thud
Onto my still-beating breast.
Nevermind, I was prepared,
I will manage with the rest.
I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again ...
But how. The hot summer rustles
Like a carnival outside my window;
I have long had this premonition
Of a bright day and a deserted house. ~ Anna Akhmatova

Spar felt a tiny thud on the back of his shin, as if a moth had butted against him on its flight through the night air. Wait, had that been the small human? Had she kicked him? He could not tell by glancing at her face. ~ Christine Warren

But Dracula, the book, the myth, goes beyond metaphor in its intuitive rendering of an oncoming century filled with sexual horror: the throat as a female genital; sex and death as synonyms; killing as a sex act; slow dying as sensuality; men watching the slow dying, and the watching is sexual; mutilation of the female body as male heroism and adventure; callous, ruthless, predatory lust as the one-note meaning of sexual desire; intercourse itself needing blood, someone's, somewhere, to count as a sex act in a world excited by sado-masochism, bored by the dull thud-thud of the literal fuck. The new virginity is emerging, a twentieth century nightmare: no matter how much we have fucked, now matter with how many, now matter with what intensity or obsession or commitment or conviction (believing that sex is freedom) or passion or promiscuous abandon, no matter how often or where or when or how, we are virgins, innocents, knowing nothing, untouched, unless blood has been spilled – ours: not the blood of the first time; the blood of every time; this elegant blood-letting of sex a so-called freedom exercised in alienation, cruelty, and despair. Trivial and decadent; proud; foolish; liars; we are free. ~ Andrea Dworkin

It's important to keep up appearances with books," I explained. "Image goes a long way in this business."

He dared a look over at me, still nervous but steadily recovering his composure. "I go more for content."

"Really?" I repositioned slightly so that we were touching again, the soft flannel of his shirt brushing my bare skin. "Because I could have sworn a moment ago you were pretty caught up in outside appearance."

His eyes shifted down again, but I could see a smile curving his lips. "Well. Some things are so striking, they can't help but draw attention to themselves."

"And doesn't that make you curious about what's inside?"

"Mostly it makes me want to get you some advanced copies."

Advanced copies? What did he - ?

"Seth? Seth, where - ah, there you are." Paige turned down our aisle, Doug following behind. She brightened when she saw me, and I felt my stomach sink out of me and hit the floor with a thud as I put two and two together. No. No. It couldn't be -

"Ah, Georgina. I see you've already met Seth Mortensen. ~ Richelle Mead

Let her go or I'll shoot you."
"I've never met a woman who'd have the guts to shoot a man," he sneered. All the women he knew were too kind. Too gentle.
"I have the guts," the girl said. "Better yet, I want to shoot you."
That shook him. The words, and the tone, a kind of flat, plain aversion the like of which he'd never met in all of his privileged life. What had he ever done to deserve this girl's contempt? And why did he even care? "Which part of me will you shoot?" he mocked. "All that's showing is my head - and you can't be that good with a gun."
"I am," the girl said. "On the count of three, I'll shoot. One . . ."
"You'd take the chance of hurting Miss Victorine?" he asked.
"I won't hurt her. Two . . ."
"Amy, please, let him go!" Miss Victorine begged. "He was such a sweet boy."
"Three." Amy's eyes narrowed. Her finger began to squeeze the trigger.
And he released Miss Victorine, spinning her away from him and into a cabinet.
She landed with a thud and fell. The pistol roared.
He dived to the floor.
A shot whistled past the place where his head had been.
"Damn, that was close. Good thing you surrendered, my lord!"
"Don't swear, dear, it's not ladylike. ~ Christina Dodd

They heard the thud of wood on flesh. Boot on bone. On teeth. The muffled grunt when a stomach is kicked in. The muted crunch of skull on cement. The gurgle of blood on a man's breath when his lung is torn by the jagged end of a broken rib.

Blue-lipped and dinner-plate-eyed, they watched, mesmerized by something that they sensed but didn't understand: the absence of caprice in what the policemen did. The abyss where anger should have been. The sober, steady brutality, the economy of it all.

They were opening a bottle.

Or shutting a tap.

Cracking an egg to make an omelette. ~ Arundhati Roy

Papa wants you to marry some decrepit old wigsby?" She gave him a charmingly rueful smile, all tousled golden curls like some angel who had rolled off a cloud in her sleep, he thought, and had fallen to earth with a thud. "Something like that," she said in vague amusement. "I see. Well, surely we can find a solution." He snapped his fingers and gave her a grin. "Shall I ruin you? That should solve your problem. The old wigsby won't want you if you're used goods, and I assure you, I'd be happy to oblige. ~ Gaelen Foley

Kate had the shape of a pixie, all noodle arms and legs; and when she bent to the ground and kicked up her feet, it looked as delicate as a spider walking a wall. Me, I sort of defied gravity with a thud. ~ Jodi Picoult

My name,' said the mattress, 'is Zem. We could discuss the weather a little.' Marvin paused again in his weary circular pplod. 'The dew,' he observed, 'has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning.' He resumed his walk, as if inspired by this conversational outburst to fresh heights of gloom and despondency. He plodded tenaciously. If he had had teeth he would have gritted them at this point. He hadn't. He didn't. The mere plod said it all. The mattress flolloped around. ~ Douglas Adams

The world was held in a savage gloom - cold and intolerable. Outside, all was quiet - quiet! From the dark room behind me, came the occasional, soft thud of falling matter - fragments of rotting stone. So time passed, and night grasped the world, wrapping it in wrappings of impenetrable blackness. ~ William Hope Hodgson

The waterwheel was twice a man's height, wider than a man's two stretched arms. The timbers, braced and bolted with rusty iron were heavy, hand-hewn, swollen with a century of wet. Moss bearded the paddles, which dripped as they rose. The sounds were good. Wooden stutter like children running down a hall at the end of school. Grudging axle thud like the heartbeat of a strong old man. ~ Joseph Hansen

The air was cool and shadowed in the great oak. Alex took a deep breath, trying to taste its greenness. It did have a taste, an elusive sweetness. Eyes half-closed, legs dangling, she felt the solid trunk against her back, the pull of the earth on her legs. Despite her presence, birds flew in and out of the tree, and her mind went with them, seeking the course of their secret journeys. She was on the edge of knowing how it felt to be one of them when the thud of a horse's hooves brought her back to earth. ~ Celeste De Blasis

Thud. Thud. Thud. ~ V.E Schwab

Is this how you will die? Is this what you were meant for? To simply be bled out like a pig?
A spark of rage flickers, an antidote to despair.
Will you not even try to survive? Did the scientists make you too stupid even to consider fighting for your own life?
Emiko closes her eyes and prays to Mizuko Jizo Bodhisattva, and then the bakeneko cheshire spirit for good measure. She takes a breath, and then with all her strength she slams her hand against the knife. The blade slices past her neck, a searing line.
"Arai wa?!" the man shouts.
Emiko shoves hard against him and ducks under his flailing knife. Behind her, she hears a grunt and thud as she bolts for the street. She doesn't look back. She plunges into the street, not caring that she shows herself as a windup, not caring that in running she will burn up and die. She runs, determined only to escape the demon behind her. She will burn, but she will not die passive like some pig led to slaughter. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

We can't get through - it'll take ages. . . ." Harry looked up at the tunnel ceiling. Huge cracks had appeared in it. He had never tried to break apart anything as large as these rocks by magic, and now didn't seem a good moment to try - what if the whole tunnel caved in? There was another thud and another "ow!" from behind the rocks. They were wasting time. Ginny had already been in the Chamber of Secrets for hours. . . . Harry knew there was only one thing to do. "Wait there," he called to Ron. "Wait with Lockhart. I'll go on. . . . If I'm not back in an hour . . ." There was a very pregnant pause. "I'll try and shift some of this rock," said Ron, who seemed to be trying to keep his voice steady. "So you can - can get back through. And, Harry - " "See you in a bit," said Harry, trying to inject some confidence into his ~ J.K. Rowling

The noise of Manhattan woke me as effectively as a jolt of caffeine. The blaring of horns and the thud of tires over a manhole cover invigorated me. Rapid-moving streams of pedestrians flanked both sides of the clogged street, while buildings stretched ambitiously toward the sky, keeping us in shadow even as the sun climbed. ~ Sylvia Day

He said, "How can the inconsequence of your life not shame you?"
He said, "How do you not feel empty?"
I do, she thought as she pushed through the library doors and let them thud behind her. I do. ~ Marie Rutkoski

I pressed my forehead to Mal's and heard him whisper, "I'll meet you in the meadow." Something inside me gave way, in fury, in hopelessness, in the certainty of my own death. I felt Mal's blood beneath my palms, saw the pain in his beloved face. A volcra screeched in triumph as its talons sank into my shoulder. Pain shot through my body. And the world went white. I closed my eyes as a sudden, piercing flood of light exploded across my vision. It seemed to fill my head, blinding me, drowning me. From somewhere above, I heard a horrible shriek. I felt the volcra's claws loosen their grip, felt the thud as I fell forward and my head connected with the deck, and then I felt nothing at all. ~ Leigh Bardugo

What do you want?" he whispered against the thick thud of her carotid pulse. "Tell me what you want, baby."
No one had ever called her baby. The fact that it had come from a guy seven years her junior should have been ridiculous. But it wasn't. It curled her toes. ~ Amy Andrews

One moment you appear to be riding the crest of a wave, only to have the rug pulled away from you, bringing you back down to earth with a sickening thud. ~ John Barrow

The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

The waves broke and spread their waters swiftly over the shore. One after another they massed themselves and fell; the spray tossed itself back with the energy of their fall. The waves were steeped deep-blue save for a pattern of diamond-pointed light on their backs which rippled as the backs of great horses ripple with muscles as they move. The waves fell; withdrew and fell again, like the thud of a great beast stamping. ~ Virginia Woolf

Think of Chicago as a piece of music, perhaps," he continued. "In it you can hear the thousands of years of people living here and fishing and hunting, and then bullets and axes, and the whine of machinery, and the bellowing of cattle, and the shriek of railroads, and the thud of fists and staves and crowbars, and a hundred languages, a thousand dialects. And the murmur of the lake like a basso undertone. Ships and storms, snow and fire. To the north the vast dark forests, and everywhere else around the city rolling fields of farms, and all roads leading to Chicago, which rises from the plains like Oz, glowing with light and fire at night, drawing people to it from around the world. A roaring city, gunfire and applause and thunder. Gleaming but made of bone and stone. Bitter cold and melting hot and clotheslines hung in the alleys and porches like the webbing of countless spiders. A city without illusions but with vaulting imaginations and expectations. A city of burning energies on the shore of a huge northern sea. An American city, with all the violence and humor and grace and greed of this particular powerful adolescent country. Perhaps the American city - no other city in the nation is as big and central and grown up from the very soil. Chicago was never ruled by Spain or England or France or Russia or Texas, it shares no ocean with other countries, it is no mere regional captain, like Cincinnati or Nashville; it is itself, all brawn and greed and song, brilliant and vena ~ Brian Doyle

So on the fifth time, I was determined to get it right. I backed out extra far to get a better angle, and that's when it happened. The thud. I turned around and didn't see anyone, so I panicked, thinking I had hit the car next to me or something. I continued to back out of the spot and threw the car in drive and was looking for a better spot so that I could inspect the car for the damage. I pulled over in the next lot and got out. That's when I saw him."
"You ... dragged him?" I ask. I'm trying to hold back the laughter.
"Over two hundred yards. After I hit him the first time, I kept backing up, and his pant leg got hung up in the bumper. I broke his leg. ~ Colleen Hoover

We are tomorrow's past. Even now we slip away like those pictures painted on the moving dials of antique clocks - a ship, a cottage, sun and moon, a nosegay. The dial turns, the ship rides up and sinks again, the yellow painted sun has set, and we, that were the new thing, gather magic as we go. The whirr of the spinning wheels has ceased in our parlours, and we hear no more the treadles of the loom, the swift, silken noise of the flung shuttle, the intermittent thud of the batten. But the imagination hears them, and theirs is the melody of romance." ~ from Mary Webb's introduction to her novel Precious Bane. ~ Mary Webb

She set the coffee down beside him with a thud that made the liquid slosh over the rim and sat down a couple of stairs behind him.
He reached for the cup and took a swallow without acknowledging her. She waited. Nothing.
"You're, uh, welcome," she prompted.
He didn't speak. He didn't nod. Wow. Breathtaking. It took balls to be that rude. ~ Shannon McKenna

A young man of godlilke proportions* was standing in the doorway.
* The better class of gods, anyway. Not the ones with the tentacles, obviously. ~ Terry Pratchett

Nothing big ever happens, good or bad, unless the floor falls out first.

Let your longing wind you down through that spiral. And know that falling can be the most wickedly awesome and totally safe thing you've ever done. Down, down, down, because when you hit that solid ground you'll know.

You might touch down softly, or you might land in an ungraceful thud. But land you will and when you're ready, you can stretch your shaky legs, dust yourself off tossing your head back to the heavens and proclaim 'Here I am! All that I am, and all that I will be."

And your heart will still love what it loves. And you will remember that was good in you, and in her. And these memories will comfort and will serve you as you move through life, open to love – wherever and whenever it finds you. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

At last with a thud her head dropped to the table, and the dishes began to clatter and clink with the violence of her snores. ~ Anna Elizabeth Bennett

I tumbled into the taxi alone, closing the door closed with a dull thud before I could possibly change my mind. Not like this, I remember thinking. Whatever this thing is between us, it could only be tainted and cheapened by a semi-drunken encounter on the night of our first meeting. As the car pulled away I stared back at him. The thought that I might never see him again, that I might never know what it would feel like to be kissed by him, seemed unbearably cruel.
At a crossroads, I had been faced with a choice: two possible versions of my future mapped out ahead of me. But I didn't feel like I had made any sort of decision. All I had done was run away. ~ Catherine Sanderson

Cam smiled as she grabbed the hem of his jeans and pulled them until his feet hit the floor with a thud. He was naked. She was naked. And he wasn't looking quite so detached anymore. In fact, he looked panicked. And annoyed. And hot. For her. ~ Toni Anderson

Hey man, did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud. ~ Bruce Springsteen

Her mother's last words rang in her head. Louder than the screams and shouts from outside the dropship. Louder than all the alarms. Louder than the frantic thud of Glass's broken heart. ~ Kass Morgan

His ears were attuned for the steady firing of Couzens' heavy machine guns, which he knew should now commence, and the thud of his carefully sited mortars, but he did not hear them and he realized, suddenly and sickeningly, that the Chinese had not attacked across the spit of land. They were pouring across the ice, and had taken Dog Company in the rear. ~ Pat Frank

The boys asked themselves, naturally, if they could kill someone. Geraint had been brought up on tales of knights-at-arms and Icelandic warriors, but he did not imagine blood. Charles had disappointed his father by taking no pleasure in foxhunting or shooting. He rather thought he could not. Philip was not really listening to the conversation. He was looking at the juxtaposition of textures in the grass, the flowers, and the silks, and the very rapid colour changes that were taking place as the sky darkened. Browning and vanishing of red, efflorescence and deepening of blues. Tom imagines the thud and suck of a bomb, the flying stone and mortar, and could not quite imagine the crushing or burning of flesh. He thought of his own skull and his own ribs. Bone under skin and tendons. No one was safe ~ A.S. Byatt

I've been avoiding you because I'm just so damn annoyed ... " He shakes his head, sloshing water. The strands brush his shoulders rhythmically. "I don't want you risking yourself again. The human world ... Will. It's too dangerous." Cassian takes my hand. I feel his heartbeat through the simple touch, the thud of his life meeting with mine. "You dead ... it would break me." His voice whips sharply over the drum of the rainfall. "Everything I ever said to you was the truth. My feelings haven't changed for you, Jacinda. Even if you drive me crazy, here, in the pride ... you're still that single bright light for me. ~ Sophie Jordan

Friends can be said to "fall in like" with as profound a thud as romantic partners fall in love. ~ Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Psychologists call it "free-floating" anxiety. What contradictory words. Anxiety doesn't free-float. It stalks. It attacks. It lands on you with a thud. ~ Martha Manning

Here I was with Barrons dead. Again.
I knew he wasn't really dead, or at least he wouldn't be for long, but my grief was too fresh and my emotions too complicated.
"How long until he - " I broke off, horrified to hear the catch of a sob in my voice.
"Why do you give a fuck?"
"I don't, I mean, I just - shit!" I turned and beat at the wall with my fists. I didn't care that my parents could hear the dull thud or that the wall shuddered beneath my blows. I didn't care what Lor thought of me. I hated Barrons being dead. Hated it. Beyond reason. Beyond my understanding.
I punched until Lor caught my bloody fists and pulled me away.
"How long?" I demanded. "I want to know! Answer me or else!"
He grinned faintly. "What, you gonna feed me bloody runes?"
I scowled. "Do you guys tell each other everything?"
"Not everything. Pri-ya sounded pretty fucking fascinating to me. Never did get all the details. ~ Karen Marie Moning

Unable to break the tenacious grip, Claude spun around and forced Mr. Braddock backward, slamming him hard into the walls, crashing into bookcases, and finally, in a desperate move, throwing himself out the street window. A shrill, useless scream escaped from my throat as the glass shattered and the cold London air rushed in. The pair disappeared out the window. There was the briefest silence, a thud, and a rattling. ~ Tarun Shanker

He climbed the stairs with slow deliberation, aware - too aware - of how hard his heart was working. Ka-boom, ka-thud. Ka-boom, ka-thud. Ka-boom, ka-thud. It made him nervous when he could feel his heart beating in his ears and wrists as well as in his chest. Sometimes when that happened he would imagine it not as a squeezing and loosening organ but as a big dial on the left side of his chest with the needle edging ominously into the red zone. He did not like that shit; he did not need that shit. What he needed was a good night's sleep. ~ Stephen King

Knock, Knock!' [Puck] called in a high, singsong voice.
For a moment, silence. Then came a thud and a crash, as if something heavy had been hurled at the door. 'Go away!' snaled the voice from within.
'Ah, no. That's not how the joke goes,' called Puck.'I say 'knock, knock', and you're supposed to answer with 'who's there?'
'Fuck off!'
'Nope, that's still wrong ~ Julie Kagawa

You are covered in blood," Tybalt said again, stressing the words harder this time. "It makes me tense." There was a thud as the guard hit the floor, and Tybalt returned to my side.
"Wow. You must be tense a lot."
He sighed. "You have no idea. ~ Seanan McGuire

we steady thud of wind with lungs that empty moon, fill it back up with shine, feed my feet to pig iron anklets biting flesh where i am link. i will break. bleed, crack. shatter. crush.
i'ma smash outta this choir, come up gasping new breath, my name burned clean, made mine ~ Tyehimba Jess

Exhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued. ~ R. Scott Bakker