Tunes Quotes - Page 21

• Life calls the tune, we dance.

  John Galsworthy

  Fate, Destiny, Free Will

  John Galsworthy “Five Tales”, Lulu.com

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• The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Stars, Heart, Men

  Letter from Iceland (1937, by Auden and MacNeice) "Letter to William Coldstream, Esq."

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• Flaubert was right when he said that our use of language is like a cracked kettle on which we bang out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we need to move the very stars to pity.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Stars, Moving, Bangs

  Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.181, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me And tune his merry note, Unto the sweet bird's throat; Come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather.

  William Shakespeare

  Sweet, Lying, Winter

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 5, l. 1

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• Intentions don't matter. It's the end result we're all judged by. Evil in the name of good is still evil. And when you dance with the devil, you seldom get to pick the tune.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Names, Evil, Matter

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2016). “Chronicles of Nick”, p.228, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree, But it was eaten by a newt, And now I have no cuddly fruit, O woe is me, O woe is me, I used to have a hamster tree!

  Clive Barker

  Woe Is Me, Tree, Fruit

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• And in "Elbow Room" the cast sings the glories of westward expansion in the United States, which involved the murder of native peoples and the violent conquest of half of Mexico. Among the lines in the song is one that intones, "There were plenty of fights / To win land right / But the West was meant to be / It was our Manifest Destiny?" Let it suffice to say that happily belting out a tune in which one merrily praises genocide is always easier for those whose ancestors weren't on the receiving end of the deal.

  Tim Wise

  Song, Fighting, Winning

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• I know you know the tale of Baby June You know the way she could deliver a tune She was a killer in a petticoat A little bit of everyone you adore... And if your baby let you down at night, Well Baby June would make it up alright And I was never happier Than in the arms and charms of her

  Terry Moore

  Baby, Night, June

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• Sometimes great tunes happen to bad times, and when the bad time is over, not all the tunes get to move on with you.

  Rob Sheffield

  Moving, Sometimes, Bad Times

  Rob Sheffield (2007). “Love Is a Mix Tape: Life, Loss, and What I Listened To”, p.198, Crown Archetype

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• Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chilliest land And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

  Emily Dickinson

  Sea, Land, Bird

  c.1860 Complete Poems, no.254 (first published 1891).

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• Love birds don't always sing pretty tunes.

  Nora Roberts

  Bird, Love Bird

  Nora Roberts (2000). “Tears of the Moon”, p.185, Penguin

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• ...The simple little words came easily, fitting themselves to the tune that had come out of the harpsichord. It didn't seem to her that she made them up at all. It seemed to her that they flew in from the rose-garden, through the open window, like a lot of butterflies, poised themselves on the point of her pen, and fell off it on to the paper.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Butterfly, Garden, Simple

  Elizabeth Goudge (2001). “The Little White Horse”, p.57, Penguin

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• Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically - whether actually more realistic or not - I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

  Haruki Murakami

  Moving, America, Self

  "Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Book by Haruki Murakami, September 1991.

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• Remembering the ball became for Emma a daily occupation. Every time Wednesday came round, she told herself when she woke up: 'Ah! One week ago...two weeks ago...three weeks ago, I was there!' And, little by little, in her memory, the faces all blurred together; she forgot the tunes of the quadrilles; no longer could she so clearly picture the liveries and the rooms; some details disappeared, but the yearning remained.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Memories, Two, Together

  Gustave Flaubert, Margaret Mauldon, Mark Overstall (2008). “Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners”, p.51, Oxford University Press

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• All that you touch All that you see All that you taste All you feel. All that you love All that you hate All you distrust All you save. All that you give All that you deal All that you buy, beg, borrow or steal. All you create All you destroy All that you do All that you say. All that you eat And everyone you meet All that you slight And everyone you fight. All that is now All that is gone All that's to come and everything under the sun is in tune but the sun is eclipsed by the moon. "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark.

  Roger Waters

  Hate, Fighting, Dark

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• She is Melusina, the water goddess, and she is found in hidden springs and waterfalls in any forest in Christendom, even in those as far away as Greece. (...) A man may love her if he keeps her secret and lets her alone when she wants to bathe, and she may love him in return until he breaks his word, as men always do, and she sweeps him into the depths with her fishy tail, and turns his faithless blood to water. The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.

  Philippa Gregory

  Spring, Men, Blood

  "The White Queen". Book by Philippa Gregory, abcnews.go.com. 2009.

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• Over the years I have learned that when I need answers to deal with crises, people, and issues, I must go to God. God will help us in everything we do if we stay in tune and if we will call on him. We must each plan our future with him in our homes, our families, and our relationships with others. If we make him our senior partner, our lives can be successful.

  Marvin J. Ashton

  Senior, Home, Successful

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• Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos, music embedded deep within us to which we dance, even when we can't name the tune.

  Deepak Chopra

  Spiritual, Names, Symphony

  Twitter post from May 6, 2011

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• I know this one pusher walks around humming a tune and everybody he passes takes it up. He is so grey and spectral and anonymous they don't see him and think it is their own mind humming the tune.

  William S. Burroughs

  Thinking, Mind, Grey

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.151, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Our lives hang in the balance of unpredictable situations. One minute you're driving down the road whistling a tune, the next moment the car right in front of you spins out of control and crashes. How you prepare for those unpredictable occurrences determines whether you live or die. Always leave an empty lane to your right or left for escape.

  Ted Dekker

  Car, Balance, Next

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• A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. It was hardly a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

  C. S. Lewis

  Beautiful, Voice, Nephew

  C. S. Lewis (2010). “A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia”, p.13, Harper Collins

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• somebody/ anybody sing a black girl's song bring her out to know herself to know you but sing her rhythms carin/ struggle/ hard times sing her song of life she's been dead so long closed in silence so long she doesn't know the sound of her own voice her infinite beauty she's half-notes scattered without rhythm/ no tune sing her sighs sing the song of her possibilities sing a righteous gospel let her be born let her be born & handled warmly.

  Ntozake Shange

  Girl, Song, Struggle

  Ntozake Shange (2010). “For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

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• It is the plight of man. And while the blame lies partly on the river " Lotus gestures towards the dark waters before us "most of the blame lies on man's inclination to tune into the noise that blares all around him instead of the beautiful silence that lies deep within.

  Alyson Noel

  Beautiful, Lying, Dark

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• i get a little romantic about the old Empire State. Just looking at it makes me want to play some Frank Sinatra tunes and sway a little. I have a crush on a building. I'd been in there several times but never to work. I always knew there were offices in there but the face never penetrated, really. You don't work in the Empire State Building. You propose in the Empire State Building. You sneak a flask up there and raise a toast to the whole city of New York.

  Maureen Johnson

  Crush, New York, Play

  Maureen Johnson (2009). “13 Little Blue Envelopes”, p.14, Harper Collins

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• And I'm moved, it's so beautiful. Not what I wrote, but to have it given back like this. To have her remember the words and the tune. To hear it in her voice.

  David Levithan

  Beautiful, Voice, Remember

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2014). “Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist”, p.83, Egmont UK

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