Tone Poem Quotes

You didn't take part, Benjamin?" Gunther asked, as he passed me a plate of cheese and cold meat.
"My brother doesn't play games," said Paul. "He's an aesthete. He sat by the window all afternoon with a funny look on his face: probably composing a tone poem. ~ Jonathan Coe

I am a book.

Sheaves pressed from the pulp of oaks and pines
a natural sawdust made dingy from purses, dusty
from shelves.
Steamy and anxious, abused and misused,
kissed and cried over,
smeared, yellowed, and torn,
loved, hated, scorned.

I am a book.

I am a book that remembers,
days when I stood proud in good company
When the children came, I leapt into their arms,
when the women came, they cradled me against their soft breasts,
when the men came, they held me like a lover,
and I smelled the sweet smell of cigars and brandy as we sat together in leather chairs,
next to pool tables, on porch swings, in rocking chairs,
my words hanging in the air like bright gems, dangling,
then forgotten, I crumbled,
dust to dust.

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
a book brand-new, sprung from the loins of ancient fathers clothed in tweed,
born of mothers in lands of heather and coal soot.
A family too close to see the blood on its hands,
too dear to suffering, to poison, to cold steel and revenge,
deaf to the screams of mortal wounding,
amused at decay and torment,
a family bred in the dankest swamp of human desires.

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
I am a mystery.

I am intrigue, anxiety, fear,
I tangle in the night with madmen, spend my days cloaked in black,
hiding from myself, from dark angels,
Lise McClendon

Renunciation, The Natural Daughter demonstrates, is the act of those who believe that their happiness is dependent on a power beyond their control which happens at a particular time, and for reasons which they cannot penetrate, not to permit them fulfilment, and this is the fundamental reason for Goethe's imperviousness to philosophies of history which do not acknowledge either the inscrutability of fate or the contingency of circumstance.

The image of perfect beauty for Goethe is permanently recoverable, provided only that fate and circumstances are favourable, for they are the powers that direct the real world, in which alone fulfilment is worth having.

Renunciation is the silence that acknowledges the absence from reality of the Ideal, and it may be interrupted only by the poem that celebrates the epiphany for which even the hope may not be uttered.

Conversely, poems, being all of them occasional poems, and expressing delight in a glimpse of beauty recovered, thanks to favourable circumstances, are an emblem, or 'talisman', of a 'counter÷magic which works against the hostility of fate.

Bitter though the disappointments of life may be for a noble nature, a poem expresses the miracle of a moment in which the Ideal enters reality once more and the powers that rule the world take on, however fleetingly, the constellation they had in paradise. In the poems he has still to write, Goethe can hope to glimpse again what he has renounce ~ Nicholas Boyle

When at last he finally hooked one, despite Elizabeth's best efforts to prevent it, she scrambled to her feet and backed up a step. "You-you're hurting it!" she cried as he pulled the hook from its mouth.
"Hurting what? The fish?" he asked in disbelief.
"Yes!"
"Nonsense," said he, looking at her as if she was daft, then he tossed the fish on the bank.
"It can't breathe, I tell you!" she wailed, her eyes fixed on the flapping fish.
"It doesn't need to breathe," he retorted. "We're going to eat it for lunch."
"I certainly won't!" she cried, managing to look at him as if he were a cold-blooded murderer.
"Lady Cameron," he said sternly, "am I to believe you've never eaten a fish?"
"Well, of course I have."
"And where do you think the fish you've eaten came from?" he continued with irate logic.
"It came from a nice tidy package wrapped in paper," Elizabeth announced with a vacuous look. "They come in nice, tidy paper wrapping."
"Well, they weren't born in that tidy paper," he replied, and Elizabeth had a dreadful time hiding her admiration for his patience as well as for the firm tone he was finally taking with her. He was not, as she had originally thought, a fool or a namby-pamby. "Before that," he persisted, "where was the fish? How did that fish get to the market in the first place?"
Elizabeth gave her head a haughty toss, glanced sympathetically at the flapping fish, then gazed at him with haughty condemnation in her ~ Judith McNaught

Her voice gave me the impression she was surprised I was capable of good ideas. It was the kind of tone city people used down here when they ordered a large coffee and called it a "Venti Americano." I milled this over, plus her earlier words about backwoods Appalachia, and came to the conclusion she thought I was a hick.

Now, I admit, we have our fair share of hicks in Green Valley, Tennessee. We have hicks, hillbillies, rednecks, bumpkins, and the occasional reclusive yokel. But I was none of these things ~ Penny Reid

The trick is to smoke a cigarette to calm your nerves and then take a big swig of strong liquor to tone your muscles. ~ Lev Yashin

Poetry is a subset of a Cosmos, which in itself, is a poem. ~ Vanna Bonta

This for That

What will I have for breakfast?
I wish I had some plums
like the ones in Williams's poem.
He apologized to his wife
for eating them
but what he did not
do was apologize to those
who would read his poem
and also not be able to eat them.
That is why I like his poem
when I am not hungry.
Right now I do not like him
or his poem. This is just
to say that.

A kinesthesia for me! It is definitely the sort of poem that makes me go to the kitchen to check if a have some plumes. I really enjoy some of Padgett's poems! ~ Ron Padgett

If tone is granted to be subjected to control, why not line also, which has equal emotional significance? And if line, why not shapes and forms? And if shapes and forms, why not allow elision or emphasis of detail? And if all these things are allowed, what becomes of the record of actuality ? ... Sunk without a trace! ~ William Mortensen

I already know the words. I just need to learn the beat. This tone-deaf white girl will try to make music out of recovery. ~ Rachel Cohn

Basically, when I went to school in Sri Lanka from age five onward, the classes there were sometimes sorted into a hierarchy of your skin tone. So the fairer-skinned kids sat at the front row, and the darker-skinned kids sat at the back by the poor ones who played out in the street all day long. ~ M.I.A.

What am I supposed to do," she says. "Wait?" She wants him to say, Yes, wait. I will be home as soon as I run this one errand. Ben perceives disgust in her tone. Why would anyone wait for him? A boy who didn't know how to be a prom date, a man who knows what he needs, but too late.
He releases her arm. His voice is professional with sorrow. "You certainly couldn't do that." He means because she is precious. Sarina hears that she is snotty and unkind. He means because he is not that lucky; she hears: he is bored.
No one says "I want you to wait," and no one says "I'll wait. ~ Marie-Helene Bertino

What inspires a poem for me is usually a moment. ~ Sherman Alexie

Wine give strenght to weary men. and
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile.
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile. and
Let those who drink not, but austerely dine,
Dry up in law; the muses smell of wine. and
No poem was ever written by a drinker of water. and
Bacchus opens the gate of the heart. and
Might to inspire new hopes and powerful
To drown the bitterness of cares. ~ Homer

And you, Lord Bridgerton," she replied in a tone that could have frozen champagne, "are almost as handsome as your brother."
Colin snorted again, only this time it sounded as if he were being strangled.
"Are you all right?" Miss Sheffield asked.
"He's fine," Anthony barked.
She ignored him, keeping her attention on Colin. "Are you certain?"
Colin nodded furiously. 'Tickle in my throat."
"Or perhaps a guilty conscience?" Anthony suggested.
Colin turned deliberately from his brother to Kate. "I think I might need another glass of lemonade," he gasped.
"Or maybe," said Anthony, "something stronger. Hemlock, perhaps? ~ Julia Quinn

They rode for a while in silence, a tiny island in the smoky stream of marching men. Then Lee said slowly, in a strange, soft, slow tone of voice, "Soldiering has one great trap."
Longstreet turned to see his face. Lee was riding slowly ahead, without expression. He spoke in that same slow voice. "To be a good soldier you must love the army. But to be a good officer you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love. This is...a very hard thing to do. No other profession requires it. That is one reason why there are so very few good officers. Although there are many good men."
Lee rarely lectured. Longstreet sensed a message beyond it. He waited. Lee said, "We don't fear our own deaths, you and I." He smiled slightly, then glanced away. "We protect ourselves out of military necessity, not do not protect yourself enough and must give thought to it. I need you. But the point is, we are afraid to die. We are prepared for our own deaths, and for the deaths of comrades. We learn that at the Point. But I have seen this happen: we are not prepared for as many deaths as we have to face, inevitably as the war goes on. There comes a time..."
He paused. He had been gazing straight ahead, away from Longstreet. Now, black-eyed, he turned back, glanced once quickly into Longstreet's eyes, then looked away.
"We are never prepared for so many to die. So you understand? No one is. We expect some chosen few. We expect an occasional empty chair, a toast to d ~ Michael Shaara

Absently, she brushed back some of the hair from her face, and she saw as Jaguar's eyes followed how the long strands slid across her throat. Though his dark skin did not show pallor as clearly as Lord Daryl's had, Turquoise could tell Jaguar had not fed yet, and she recognized the hungry look in his black eyes.
Testing, she stood, the movement appearing reluctant. "I"ll leave you to your work if you'd like."
He answered the way she had expected him to. Not raising his gaze from her throat, he said, "Come here." Though the words were an order, the tone left room for argument.
For a moment, Turquoise almost felt guilty. She was intentionally manipulating him. A feeding vampire is an easy target; most of them completely lost sense of their surroundings as they drew blood. Jaguar did not even try to catch her mind as his lips fell to her throat. If she had been armed, it would have been revoltingly easy to kill him. ~ Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Nature is full of patterns and we humans love finding them, creating them, repeating them. This is the core of language, math, music, and even ritual, which is the repetition of words or actions deemed worthy of representing something bigger than ourselves. My view is that all over the world and across time, these are all a form of art, an elaborate performance or a secret poem, all vital in their ability to help us face the nature of time and change, life and death, and everything else we cannot control. ~ Sasha Sagan

a poem is never finished, only abandoned, ~ Clive James

You set the tone on the set that you want to see in the film. ~ Todd Phillips

For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling vaguely guilty. ~ William S. Burroughs

I finally went
where everyone goes
and I realized
I was
never
missing
out. ~ Meraaqi

Don't choose anything that's two tones lighter than your natural lip tone, and make sure there's a little pink in the hue so it doesn't look too washed out. ~ Charlotte Tilbury

Special thanks to Martha Sharpe and everyone at Anansi; to Mandy Barber, for the use of her stunning visual art; to Karen Mac Cormack, for her advice during the early stages of this project; and to David Bromige (weaver of radhats), for his enthusiasm which encouraged me to develop this piece into a book-length poem. ~ Darren Wershler-Henry

We have great power to affect the attitudes and behavior of the people around us, at work and at home. We have the power to set a tone of honor, to create an energy around ourselves that says, 'I respect myself. I respect you. Let's respect each other.' ~ Marianne Williamson

Usually, a number of events will be going on around me to start me on a book. What I mean is, I will have read a poem or seen a picture that is lingering in my mind. ~ Chris Raschka

The poem was made not just to exist, but to speak - to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed. ~ Mary Oliver

The gray-green stretch of sandy grass,Indefinitely desolate;A sea of lead, a sky of slate;Already autumn in the air, alas!One stark monotony of stone,The long hotel, acutely white,Against the after-sunset lightWithers gray-green, and takes the grass's tone. ~ Arthur Symons

Most likely Pistons," said Pillover in a resigned tone of voice. "You told them about the ball. They like to go to events uninvited, put gin in the punch, and steal all the spoons. Stylish shenanigans like that."
"Charming," said Sophronia. ~ Gail Carriger

Ah," he said in a tone of genial wisdom, "a chancellor is rather like a bidet. Everyone is pleased to have one, but no one knows quite what they are for." A chancellor is nominally the head of a university, but in practice has no role, no power, no purpose. ~ Bill Bryson

A statute is written to entrap meaning, a poem to escape it. ~ Hilary Mantel

I wanna make growing old with you
the last poem I ever have to write ~ Michael Biondi

The red washing
down the bathtub
can't change the color of the sea
at all. ~ Derrick Brown

In a sense, the first (if not necessarily the prime) function of a novelist, of ANY artist, is to entertain. If the poem, painting, play or novel does not immediately engage one's surface interest then it has failed. Whatever else it may or may not be, art is also entertainment. Bad art fails to entertain. Good art does something in addition. ~ Brigid Brophy

When they reached the peak, he faced her, gathered her to him, and gazed into her amazing blue eyes. "You look beautiful," he said huskily, surprising himself with his tone. He swept his fingers along the top of her shoulder and cupped his hand on her neck, caressing her velvety earlobe with the pad of his thumb. "You put this awesome sunset to shame. ~ Tracy March

I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company called Blueline. After I do a few drafts, I type up the poem on a Macintosh G3 and then send it out the door. ~ Billy Collins

Anything happening," she whispered.
"Aside from you blundering about like a lost elephant?" he asked, in the same low tone.
She nodded, accepting the rebuke. "Aside from that. ~ John Flanagan

I think that part of the reason that 'Iron Man' was so successful was that we really chose to break new ground in a new area tonally, cast wise, the way we depict the hero, what his abilities are. It felt fresh in a genre that is beginning to feel stale if it's not done with the proper amount of inspiration and a strong voice or tone. ~ Jon Favreau