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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
e4c945c "7 Up soda pop mixed with bright pink grenadine with a chemical-tasting maraschino cherry stuck to the plastic straw. It was one of those drinks marketed for children, but Mandy could see that she wasn't the only adult ordering one. For some reason or other these old-fashioned restaurants always seemed to attract old ladies ordering strawberry Jell-O with whipped cream, truck drivers ordering "worms and dirt" (chocolate pudding with Oreo cookies squished over the top in a glass bowl, fruit-flavoured gummy worms over the cookie crumbs) and businessmen trying not to get syrup from their hot fudge sundaes on their neckties and tailored suits. Mandy figured that maybe they were all trying to grasp a time way back in the past when they were all little children, excitedly ordering desert for a special occasion under the warm incandescent light from above, cheerful and bouncing music filling their minds. Hurriedly she ate the food, paid the tab and hurried back to her car in the bitter wind, not wanting to stick around for very long." adult bounce businessman canada car cherry childhood desert diner growing-up kid memory music shirley-temple snow swiss-chalet wind Rebecca McNutt
e0fd8d4 There are songs that you play that you have to restart, and songs that you play that you never get right. But when a song is complete, there is no more you can do. inspiration music musicians piano Mitch Albom
997aa82 Some of my favorite songs: 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' by Neil Young; 'Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me' by the Smiths; 'Call Me' by Aretha Franklin; 'I Don't Want to Talk About It' by anybody. And then there's 'Love Hurts' and 'When Love Breaks Down' and 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' and 'The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness' and 'She's Gone' and 'I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself 'and . . . some of these songs I have listened to around once a week, on average (three hundred times in the first month, every now and again thereafter), since I was sixteen or nineteen or twenty-one. How can that not leave you bruised somewhere? How can that not turn you into the sort of person liable to break into little bits when your first love goes all wrong? What came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person? People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands, of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this unhappiness, but I do know that they've been listening to the sad songs longer than they've been living the unhappy lives. misery music Nick Hornby
a8c5add Inside, upstairs, where the planes are met, the spaces are long and low and lined in tasteful felt gray like that cocky stewardess's cap and filled with the kind of music you become aware of only when the elevator stops or when the dentist stops drilling. Plucked strings, no vocals, music that's used to being ignored, a kind of carpet in the air, to cover up a silence that might remind you of death. airport foreshadowing memento-mori music rabbit-angstrom John Updike
64580d5 The Beatles were bubblegum cards and Help at the Saturday morning cinema and toy plastic guitars and singing 'Yellow Submarine' at the top of my voice in the back row of the coach on school trips. They belong to me, not to me and Laura, or me and Charlie, or me and Alison Ashworth, and though they'll make me feel something, they won't make me feel anything bad. music relationships the-beatles Nick Hornby
6c2ac24 Lend your ear then to this tutti of steeples; diffuse over the whole the buzz of half a million of human beings, the eternal murmur of the river, the infinite piping of the wind, the grave and distant quartet of the four forests placed like immense organs on the four hills of the horizon; soften down, as with a demi-tint, all that is too shrill and too harsh in the central mass of sound, and say if you know any thing in the world more rich, more gladdening, more dazzling than that tumult of bells; than that furnace of music; than those ten thousand brazen tones breathed all at once from flutes of stone three hundred feet high; than that city which is but one orchestra; than that symphony rushing and roaring like a tempest. music paris sound Victor Hugo
81c8a98 Glorious is the Voice of Man, and sweet is the music of the harp. man music singing Richard Llewellyn
991ca89 There's only the one, see. When you fall in love with a girl, she's the bloody White Album. That is what you whisper to yourself, when you don't understand her at all. You just keep telling yourself, she's the bloody Beatles White Album and there's only one of her. beatles girl music Rob Sheffield
dd611f5 Music open our minds to allow the perception of new thoughts of a higher nature, which gives us a spiritual lift, which produces yet more joy. joy joyful-living music wisdom wu-wei Wu Wei
afc867e "Keith Richards is a man without regret. When I ask him if--given the chance to do it all over again--he'd start taking heroin, he doesn't pause. "Oh yes. Yes. There was a lot of experience in there--you meet a lot of weird people, different takes on life that you're not going to find if you don't go there. I loved a good high. And if you stay up, you get the songs that everyone else misses, because they're asleep. There's songs zooming around everywhere. There's songs zooming through here right now, in the air." music Caitlin Moran
f0b284f It's just an old fella. Mostly bald. Walking dainty like his feet's tender. And still singing. With some things in his hand. He puts them down on a drum. Sits on a milk crate in the shade. Pulls on a pair of gumboots. Then he snatches up the things from beside him and shuffles out in the sun and leans against the verandah post and I see him clear enough. Singlet. Baggy arse shorts. Thick specs. He's short and thick this fella. Red in the face. And that stuff in his hand, it's a knife and steel. He looks around, kind of slow and lazy. Stops singing then and just hums a minute while he hones the knife. And he knows how to freshen up a blade, that I can see straight up. irony music violence Tim Winton
911cb94 We want to freeze the perfect moment, hold on to it, at least long enough to understand it. But it dances on with us or without us, so we jump in and try to keep up. The universe is expanding and we are just two of a billion stars. life music Rob Sheffield
d5081a0 "Laughing at "Rapper's Delight"'s no revenge, and anyway it wasn't your idea, and anyway it's . Dean Street's another story, a realm of knowledge unapplicable here. You've just about finished leaving Dean Street, and Aeroman, behind. If this means avoiding the one who protected your ass all through junior high, the one you once ached to emulate, the one whose orbit you were happy just to swing in - if it means leaving the million-dollar kid's regular phone messages in Abraham's precise handwriting unreturned - that's a small price to pay for growing up, isn't it? growing-up music Jonathan Lethem
24b13de Pochi uccelli Stephen preferiva ai succiacapre, ma non era stato il loro canto a farlo scendere dal letto. Rimase fermo, appoggiato alla ringhiera, e poco dopo Jack Aubrey, in un padiglione presso il campo di bocce, ricomincio a suonare con grande dolcezza nel buio, improvvisando solo per se, fantasticando sul suo violino con una maestria che Stephen non aveva mai conosciuto in lui, sebbene avessero suonato insieme per tanti anni.[...] In effetti suonava meglio di Stephen, e ora che stava usando il suo prezioso Guarnieri invece del robusto strumento adatto al mare, la differenza era ancora piu marcata: ma il Guarnieri non bastava a spiegarla del tutto, assolutamente no. Quando suonavano insieme, Jack nascondeva la propria eccellenza, mantenendosi al mediocre livello di Stephen [...]; mentre rifletteva su questo, Maturin si rese conto a un tratto che era sempre stato cosi: Jack, indipendentemente dalle condizioni di Stephen, detestava mettersi in mostra. Ma in quel momento, in quella notte tiepida, ora che non vi era nessuno da sostenere moralmente, cui dare il proprio appoggio, nessuno che potesse criticare il suo virtuosismo, Jack poteva lasciarsi andare completamente; e mentre la musica grave e delicata continuava a diffondersi, Stephen si stupi una volta di piu dell'apparente contraddizione tra il grande e grosso ufficiale di marina, florido e allegro [...] e la musica pensosa, complessa che quello stesso uomo stava ora creando. Una musica che contrastava immensamente con il suo limitato vocabolario, un vocabolario che lo rendeva talvolta quasi incapace di esprimersi. modesty music Patrick O'Brian
6a1247b The bookshelves were lined with Joan Didion and Flannery O'Connor, a small, unexpected collection of musicalia, essay collections on Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. There was a framed poster of an exhibit of romantic landscape paintings in Dresden. Intellectuals had their own thing going, that was for sure. books intellectuals music Gary Shteyngart
b37efb6 Rock and roll, big band, the blues. He loved them all. He would close his eyes and with a blissful smile begin to move to his own sense of rhythm. It wasn't always pretty. funny humor humour music rhythm Mitch Albom
9200e9c Children's voices - even those who couldn't carry the tune - are always appealing. music Anne McCaffrey
d6dbb33 She read in a high African singsong that I guess came down along the line from Ghana long ago, something that she made American, but tied us to a home we'd never seen. american music slave Colum McCann
327de98 "Baby leaned back in her seat. The train seemed to be going faster, and from somewhere far away Baby heard music. It was a song that she knew but couldn't quite place. "Do you hear music?" she said to Sheila. "I hear something," said Sheila. She closed her eyes. She was quiet. "I've got a physics professor who says that the stars sing to each other all the time. Isn't that cool? Maybe the music we're hearing is the stars singing." music stars Kate DiCamillo
f7b4a6e Those around me persist in not understanding that I have never been able to live in a real world of people and things. And that is why I have this irrefutable need to escape and become involved in adventures which seem inexplicable because they involve a man no one recognizes. And perhaps that is what is best in me! Besides, an artist by definition is a man accustomed to dreams and who lives among phantoms. . . . How could it be expected that this same person would be able to follow in his daily life the strict observance of traditions-- laws and other barriers erected by a hypocritical and cowardly world. (Letter from Claude Debussy to Jacques Durand) artistic-temperament artists composition creativity debussy music Eric Frederick Jensen
a3918e5 They had taken to the movement unlike anything he had ever seen, and he thought that should this venture of the Jews prove successful, the new state would be filled with dancers and musicians, but especially dancers, for dancing like nothing else says: I am still alive. music survival Mark Helprin
2c9548a When I point my fingers at the keys, the music springs straight out of me. Right hand playing notes sharp as tongues, telling stories while the smooth buttery rhythms back me up on the left. music piano playing-music Karen Hesse
20b50e7 It's like George always says: being in a rock 'n' roll band is very sexy, even when you're only the keyboard player and your idea of the perfect Saturday night actually amounts to a bubble bath, a Richard Curtis boxset and a seafood linguine. humour music rock-and-roll Christopher Russell
7b93544 One could say that the mechanism of metamorphosis is the only element of life that never changes. The journey of every individual, every country, every historical epoch, of the entire universe and all it contains, is nothing but a series of changes, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a loss, they are moments that we tend to remember. They give a structure to our existence. Almost all the rest is oblivion. I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves. existence life music transformation Jhumpa Lahiri
b1e163a Det var nastan som att upptacka en forfattare man inte last, fast man stoter i och for sig hela tiden pa forfattare som man inte har last medan det ar mycket sallsynt, atminstone i vuxen alder, att man plotsligt hittar en stor popartist som har gett ut massor av bra skivor. Oftast ar det fordomar snarare an okunnighet som gor att man missar stora artister, och fordomar ar svara att gora sig av med (det ar ju sa roligt att fa dem bekraftade). music pop prejudice records writers Nick Hornby
bd04508 "You float like a feather," sings Radiohead, "In a beautiful world." I've listened several times to the Radiohead songs, because it was nice of Raymond to say he heard a bit of them in what I sang. I'm not sure I hear it myself, but I am pleased and touched. Sometimes that's what you need, just a quick casual word of knowledgeable encouragement. Radiohead reminds me a little of the songs in Garden State soundtrack. Now, that's a soundtrack. They were all songs that Zach Braff liked, so he put them in his movie. And there's that beautiful moment near the beginning where Natalie Portman hands him the headphones and she watches him listen to the song and she smiles her huge, innocent Natalie Portman smile." music songs-lyrics Nicholson Baker
092b1a9 Den musik man redan har racker inte en hel livstid, inte om man lyssnar pa musik varje dag och sa fort man kommer at. music Nick Hornby
59097f6 A sad, plangent music. In the British camp, Sharpe thought, they would be singing, but no one was singing here. camp here music plangent sad sharpe singing Bernard Cornwell
41b3f6d What came first - the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person? music nick-hornby Nick Hornby
06d7e7b We think we understand a songs lyrics, but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music. music Carlos Ruiz Zafón
d00b666 I drive a beat-up Mercury Cougar, with the windows down and the music up. I seek my identity in toughness - but it is Morrie's softness that draws me, and because he doesn't look at me as a kid trying to be something more than I am, I relax. close identity image kid music soft tough windows Mitch Albom
5417b1b The rain rapped the roof like mallets. The thunder was a tympani drum. Downstairs the raiders set fire to the refectory and the flames crackled like a hundred castanets. Those few who had not fled the church were screaming, high, pleading shrieks, met by lower barking orders of those committing the atrocities. The low and high voices, the crackling fire, whipping wind, drumming rain and crashing thunder created an angry symphony, swirling to a crescendo, and just as the invaders threw open the tomb of Saint Pascual, ready to desecrate his bones, the bells above the basilica began to chime, causing all to look up. At that precise moment, Frankie Presto was born. music Mitch Albom
2377956 We stopped and listened. Just on the cusp of hearing I detected a rhythmic pounding, more a vibration in the concrete than a sound. 'Drums,' I said and then because I couldn't resist it. 'Drums in the deep.' 'Drum and Bass in the deep,' said Kumar. lord-of-the-rings music Ben Aaronovitch
bff21ee "I may some day get a boyfriend and eventually a husband, but you will always be my first loves." -Sheetal, 14, Qatar" 5sos ashton-irwin calum-hood luke-hemmings michael-clifford music Jazmin Williams
2c8e870 "We feel that we fit into this fandom even if we're an outcast or misfits in this world." -Mary, 16, Philippines" ashton-irwin calum-hood fan luke-hemmings michael-clifford music Jazmin Williams
7e10b11 Her technique was not perfect. Here and there he heard an off-pitch note, and her run of sixteenths was uneven. But her attack was fierce, her bow digging into the strings with such confidence that even her mistakes sounded intentional, every note played without apology. music Tess Gerritsen
9d3c376 "I look through the old record collection my dad gave me. Stress relief. I shuffle through the albums feverishly and find what I'm looking for-the Proclaimers. I chuck it on and watch it spin. The ridiculous first notes of "Five Hundred Miles" come on, and I feel like going berserk. Even the Proclaimers are giving me the shits tonight. Their singing's an abomination." humor location-1259 music record singing stress stress-relief the-proclaimers Markus Zusak
086dbae In those years, hip-hop saved my life. I was still half alien to the people around me. I loved them, mostly because I'd realized that there was no other choice. Hip-hop gave me a common language, but that August, on liberated land, I found that there were other ways of speaking, a mother tongue that, no matter age, no matter interest, lived in us all. hip-hop music Ta-Nehisi Coates
a28c48d The viola and the clarinet made for an interesting pairing: we had to imagine the accompaniment of other instruments, ideally a violin and a cello. music viola Nicholas Christopher
792b85f Katsumi Hosokawa - (he) believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. bel-canto life music Ann Patchett
574d693 "It's funny, isn't it," Miss Woolf whispered in Ursula's ear, "how much German music we listen to. Great beauty transcends all. Perhaps after the war it will heal all too." -- healing music peace war Kate Atkinson
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