We must all work in harmony with each other to stand up for what is right, to speak up for what is fair, and to always voice any corrections so that the ignorant become informed and justice is never ignored. Every time a person allows an act of ignorance to happen, they delay our progress for true change. Every person, molecule and thing matters. We become responsible for the actions of others the instant we become conscious of what they are doing wrong and fail to remind them of what is right.
I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there’s something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of.But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It’s hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do—the only thing— is run.
All stories have a curious and even dangerous power. They are manifestations of truth -- yours and mine. And truth is all at once the most wonderful yet terrifying thing in the world, which makes it nearly impossible to handle. It is such a great responsibility that it's best not to tell a story at all unless you know you can do it right. You must be very careful, or without knowing it you can change the world.
I just want your voice aimed at me again. I want to absorb the direction of your eyes…
I don’t know why everyoneis still trying to find out whether heaven and hell exist.Why do we need more evidence?They exist here on this very Earth.Heaven is standing atop Mount Qasiounoverlooking the Damascene sightswith the wind carrying Qabbani’sdulcet words all around you.And hell is only four hours away in Aleppo where children’s cries drown out the explosions of mortar bombsuntil they lose their voice,their families, and their limbs.Yes, hell certainly does existright now, at this moment,as I pen this poem. And all we’re doingto extinguish this hellfireis sighing, shrugging, liking, and sharing.Tell me: what exactly does that makeus? Are we any better than the gatekeepers of hell?
Just please understand that everyone is going through a rough time as well. Even if they are hiding behind money or a simple smile. We are all continuously stumbling as we go about our lives. If we had perfect lives we'd all be perfect people. Only thing we can learn to do is endure or we will not be happy and happiness is the closest thing to perfect.
Once you start questioning your beliefs, that's when it's all over. It is truly doubt that kills our conviction.
After you hear and listen. First must come desire. Second must come willingness.Third should come understanding.Fourth should come progression and with progression will come more understanding.
During these hard times in the world we should always remember to keep our families and friends close.
After you hear and listen. First must come desire. Second must come willingness.Third should come understanding.Fourth should come progression and with progression will come more understanding..
They took one look at me,And hated my black face.They took one look at me,And decided on my fate.They took one look at me,And forced an unknown fear.They took one look at me,And caused the shed of tears.They took one look at me,And decided I was wrong.They took one look at me,And now I'm singing the slave mans song...
The decision is your own voice, an opinion is the echo of someone else's voice.
I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldn’t even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrowfor I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspiredbut empty and weary from drinking too much at all timesand I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speakfor I don’t speak muchat alland my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too muchor not at alland never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am nota poembut an elegyat my bestbut unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because there’s only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and I’m pretty fine with that,but others are not.
I used to listen to all the voices in my head that told me I wasn’t good enough, or that I would fail if I tried, or that everyone would judge me harshly for my truth. I used to let one fear or the other dictate how I chose to live my life. Not surprisingly, my life didn’t change much. I spent a lot of time with regret, and thinking about what could have been. I found myself wishing I’d at least tried to do some of the things I’d been so afraid to do. So I began to. I made the choice to hear all the fearful critics in my head without actually listening to them. I gave them a voice, but no longer a say. I had given all the power to my fear, after all, so it was within me to take it away. And my entire life changed, as every life does once we insist that our fears take a backseat to our courage and desire. Fear may not be a choice, but the commitment to take brave action, despite our fears, is always there for the choosing. I spent enough time obeying my fears. Too much time. Now I listen to different voices, the ones reminding me that no matter what happens, no matter what people think, the great potential of my life, and joy, lives within my commitment to live my life beyond my fear.
And the moment she held that diary in her hands, she summoned all her demons at once. The moment she opened it a hand from every page held her and pulled her inside. And in a moment even before she could realize what was happening to her she was drowning in the sea, fighting to breathe and fighting to swim back to the surface. But the hands kept pulling her down deep into the darkness until her voice died slowly.
Forget your voice, sing!Forget your feet, dance!Forget your life, live!Forget yourself and be!
From time to time, we all must go unto a landscape—be it inner or outer landscape—where there are no hiding places. Allowing the stark awe and silence to aid us in both communing and confronting the depth of ourselves. We fear emptiness because we know that within those places of nothingness we will come face-to-face with who we are and gaze into the internal mirror. But what is the alternative? Shall we go our entire life without hearing our own voice . . . without ever having met who we are when isolated from all?
My love, you are driving the entire world mad. The nightingales are committing suicide one by one out of jealousy of your voice. The roses took one glance at your beauty and folded themselves from shame. The trees now only whisper your name and the sky hasn’t stopped crying since you looked up. Have pity on us, my love. We have already broken all the mirrors and glass out of fear that you will forget us and fall in love with yourself once you see what we all cannot stop seeing.
I forgive youAll I had to offer you was sadnessMy eyes shed sadnessMy face speaks sadnessMy lips smile sadnessMy voice spews sadnessMy touch spreads sadnessI forgive you for leaving, for I have become an infectious incurable virus threatening to destroy everything you are notSuch a happy delicate thing she is, isn't she?She has no idea, does she?How long before you turn her into sadness...
They can award me with the greatest accolades and reward me with the finest diamonds. They can name days and streets after me, canonise and celebrate me. They can make me the queen of their kingdom, the president of their nation. They can carry my picture in their wallets and whisper my name in their prayers but, tell me, what is all this worth if your voice isn’t the one calling me home?
Let my silence grow with noise as pregnant mothers grow with life. Let my silence permeate these walls as sunlight permeates a home. Let the silence rise from unwatered graves and craters left by bombs. Let the silence rise from empty bellies and surge from broken hearts. The silence of the hidden and forgotten. The silence of the abused and tortured. The silence of the persecuted and imprisoned. The silence of the hanged and massacred. Loud as all the sounds can be, let my silence be loud so the hungry may eat my words and the poor may wear my words. Loud as all the sounds can be, let my silence be loud so I may resurrect the dead and give voice to the oppressed. My silence speaks.
If you wait until you find something to speak up for, something that you’re passionate about that concerns you and attacks your own beliefs, then eventually, when the day finally arrives, you might also find that you have forgotten how to speak.
Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.
The dilemma for women who love to write may not have so much to do with finding the elusive literary voice, as with being reluctant to use the one that's already lurking inside, just waiting for the chance to speak up. Many of us, especiall,y those from the generations taught to be good, accommodating girls, are afraid of sounding too strong, too loud, too unconventional, or simply too much like the self we're afraid to reveal to the world. Most of us have at least an inkling of what form our writing voice should take, if only we might find the courage to reveal it.
Make no mistake about it. We are born blind, deaf, and mute. It is neither these eyes that give us sight, nor these ears that give us sound. It is not even these lips that give us voice. It is only love. Love makes us seek beauty and truth. Love yearns to connect. To experience. To understand. So close your eyes at once. Don’t utter a word. Perk up your ears and listen to that silent sound inside you where all this is found.
She's it. She's my everything. She's the standard by which I'll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I'll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.
Refusal to engage in spiritual warfare does not exempt you from being among the next casualties of war
O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written upon his countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice; and in a voice from the burning bush. The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man!
...and you will hold me with your wondering eyes in the serenity of purest mind at the dreams edge of my quiet golden shores accompanied by the melodies of emerald blue rippling waves where I will always remain voicing harmony in the over the rainbow soothing memories of your heart...
It was not my intention - it never was - to invent a character who should speak for me, the author, in person. A character is in a story to fill a role there, and the character's life along with its expression of life is defined by that surrounding - indeed is created by its own story. Yet, it seems to me now, years after I wrote The Golden Apples, that I did bring forth a character with whom I came to feel oddly in touch. She derived from what I already knew for myself, even felt I had always known. What I have put into her is my passion for my own life work, my own art. Exposing yourself to risk is a truth that Mrs. Eckhart and I had in common. What animates and possesses me is what drives Mrs. Eckhart, the love of her art and the love of giving it, the desire to give it until there is no more left. Of course any writer is in part all of his characters. How otherwise would they be known to him, occur to him, become what they are? In the making of her character out of my most inward and most deeply felt self, I would say I have found my voice in my own fiction.
We are all born as storytellers. Our inner voice tells the first story we ever hear.
Echo of the waves appears in the sky, their lights reflected in your eyes. I'm back in our world and happy again. The sound of your voice, compassionate embrace... The power in your touch, serenity of stride... The beating of your heart calms down my presence, gracing with eternal peace of mind... Bathing in the sunshine of your arms I'm deeply aware of the melodic stream that has no language...gliding beneath the quiet Heaven of your eyes...
It's not a silly pursuit to read beyond what's handed to you, to seek out new voices and leap over the usual books everyone's already talking about and see what you can find on your own.Making definitive choices about what we spend our time on as readers can make a statement, a difference. We can lift other writers up, give space and attention to more voices than the ones that already have all the space and attention.There is power in what we choose to consume as readers, and there is power in what we choose to amplify, celebrate, and share.
MOTHER IS WATERI wish I couldShower your head with flowersAnd anoint your feet with my tears,For I know I have caused youSo much heartache, frustration and despair –Throughout my youthful years.I wish I could give youThe remainder of my lifeTo add to yours,Or simply eraseThe lines on your face,And mend all that has been torn.For next to God,You are the fireThat has given lightTo the flame in each of my eyes.You are the fountainThat nourished my growth,And from your chalice –Gave me life.Without the wetness of your love,The fragrance of your water,Or the trickling sounds ofYour voice,I shall always feelthirsty.
Lord I thank you for the gift of breath, eyes to see, ears to hear, tongue to taste, nose to smell; mouth to speak, face to smile, voice to sing, body to dance, legs to walk, mind to think and hands to write.
In your most desperate moments where you crawl on the ground like worms, sometimes you suddenly hear the voice of a savior, the voice of the Music which immediately carries you away to the stars!
... and I realise the only way to tell the others is through the way my voice can take these broken wordsand turn it into music. Turn it into poetry.And I sing to make myself come alive, but also for you,because I’d like this to mean something.To not disappear with the dark I will enter one day and so now I will tell.If not for you, then for my own heart, because it tells me to,and I'm learning to listen.
A singer whose ear is singly directed to the melodic aspects of a Brahms lied or a Verdi aria lacks perception of the musical web from which the melodic line emerges; the composer's intent may remain unrealized. to sing Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, or Strauss lieder without an understanding of underlying harmonic structures is to vocalize on them, not to conceive of them musically and emotionally.
Anna's voice wasn't a beautiful voice - rough edged and sorrowful, a bit used, somehow male and female at once. Yet it had more vibrancy to it than most Danish voices, which were often thin and white and too pretty to trigger a shiver. Anna's voice had the heat of the south; it warmed Einar, as if her throat were red with coals.
The best art is not always the most popular art, and the most popular art is never truly the best art. The best art is that which is streamed through God. And the worst art is that which is void of God. The master artist of the universe is the Creator of All Things, and his reflection is in all of us. Only the artist who is aware that he is a reflection of that greatness, and that creativity is supreme love, is a true divine artist. Even if he is not the most popular artist, he will be very popular among the stars of His universe. That is the master artist, one who uses his talents to serve as a vehicle of God. In his work, you hear God's voice and see with His eyes.
But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him.
Think about rethinking what you're thinking, before speaking the thought you were thinking, and cause unintended consequences for speaking what you probably shouldn't have been thinking.
It's time to get healed. It's time to confess. Falling for the bait doesn't make you the worst person in the world. You were snared. You were hooked. But you don't have to stay that way. Now is the time to deal with the shackles that keep you enslaved. Today you can leave the prison that sexual immorality has created from your past mistakes. Hear your Father's voice call out to you above the noisy clamor of our culture. He says, "I love you. You're free to go now. Sexual sin has no hold on you.
Come back to me.Where have you gone?And why so long?I miss the star below your lip,the constellation on your chest.I miss your ways,how you net butter-flying words and release themfor others to enjoy.I miss your tenderness,the sweetness of your breathand the song of your voice.I miss howyou worship me.Come back to me once more.Why did you go?And whatever for?The heavens plotted against us.The clouds came andpissed on our lives.The smell of charged particlesstill lingers in the air.What will become of you and I?Come back to us.
He says that woman speaks with nature. That she hears voices from under the earth. That wind blows in her ears and trees whisper to her. That the dead sing through her mouth and the cries of infants are clear to her. But for him this dialogue is over. He says he is not part of this world, that he was set on this world as a stranger. He sets himself apart from woman and nature.And so it is Goldilocks who goes to the home of the three bears, Little Red Riding Hood who converses with the wolf, Dorothy who befriends a lion, Snow White who talks to the birds, Cinderella with mice as her allies, the Mermaid who is half fish, Thumbelina courted by a mole. (And when we hear in the Navaho chant of the mountain that a grown man sits and smokes with bears and follows directions given to him by squirrels, we are surprised. We had thought only little girls spoke with animals.)We are the bird's eggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep; we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and sprigs of wallflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak.But we hear.
Yet because her needs and yearnings are real and pressing, she must find some way to express them: she puts into body what she cannot yet put into words. Her eating disorder serves as her voice, her attempt to express and meet her needs and desires without directly asking for anything".
When there is silence, Give your voice. When there is darkness, Shine your light. When there is desperation, Offer hope.
My mother's journals are a shadow play with mine. I am a woman wedded to words. Words cast a shadow. Without a shadow there is no depth. Without a shadow there is no substance. If we have no shadow, it means we are invisible. As long as I have a shadow, I am alive.
I wanted to scream as I stood there, my toes hanging over the edge of the dock. I wanted to let a gut-wrenching howl rip from my disfigured throat toward those clouded skies. I wanted to say every swear word my mother had ever taught me not to say.I would have settled for a cut-off whimper, just as long as some kind of sound came from my lips.
When I was young, I thought it was thunder that kills people. But when I learnt physics in St. Paul's High School, I discovered that it is rather the lightning that does the killing. The voice of the thunder itself is just a noise. The lightning is the poise. I learnt to take the course of my life, not by violence but rather with intelligence.
Remind Youth: It is not necessary to look for confidence. It is there – potentially yours and never hidden; awaiting a commanding voice of faith, hope and affirmation. Speak repetitiously with authority and conviction the self-assurance which only seems lacking, but you simply lost touch with.
My VoiceDreamt a dream of dreams,lucidOne word birthed another,othersStill deeper beyond time,infinite spaceOne bled into another,one dancedTwisted tight, for dear life, embraced windsDarkness, out of sight burned, wept my mindInto a new frontier, frameless portraitsIn defiance, out of the ash, rose my voiceKaleb Kilton (c) 2016
It is also true that memory sometimes comes to him as a voice. It is a voice that speaks inside him, and it is not necessarily his own. It speaks to him in the way a voice might tell stories to a child, and yet at times this voice makes fun of him, or calls him to attention, or curses him in no uncertain terms. At times it willfully distorts the story it is telling him, changing the facts to suit its whims, catering to the interests of drama rather than truth. Then he must speak to it in his own voice and tell it to stop, thus returning it to the silence it came from. At other times it sings to him. At still other times it whispers. And then there are the times it merely hums, or babbles, or cries out in pain. And even when it says nothing, he knows it is still there, and in the silence of this voice that says nothing, he waits for it to speak.
You are funny like a kid and awesome like a princessUnseen like an angel, like the morning sunshine… Kindness like a river and highness like a mountain, In the middle of the Rheine, the cute face and sweet lips …(La la la la, La la , mmmm , mm …)Keep the lovely smile, in your juicy icy eyes Open the heaven for my eyes, forever angel voice Never angry never harsh, never mad never marsh Dear or darling, either diamond or dime, Overall the dream of the world
And it was in that moment of distress and confusion that the whip of terror laid its most nicely calculated lash about his heart. It dropped with deadly effect upon the sorest spot of all, completely unnerving him. He had been secretly dreading all the time that it would come - and come it did.Far overhead, muted by great height and distance, strangely thinned and wailing, he heard the crying voice of Defago, the guide.The sound dropped upon him out of that still, wintry sky with an effect of dismay and terror unsurpassed. The rifle fell to his feet. He stood motionless an instant, listening as it were with his whole body, then staggered back against the nearest tree for support, disorganized hopelessly in mind and spirit. To him, in that moment, it seemed the most shattering and dislocating experience he had ever known, so that his heart emptied itself of all feeling whatsoever as by a sudden draught.'Oh! oh! This fiery height! Oh, my feet of fire! My burning feet of fire...' ran in far, beseeching accents of indescribable appeal this voice of anguish down the sky. Once it called - then silence through all the listening wilderness of trees.And Simpson, scarcely knowing what he did, presently found himself running wildly to and fro, searching, calling, tripping over roots and boulders, and flinging himself in a frenzy of undirected pursuit after the Caller. Behind the screen of memory and emotion with which experience veils events, he plunged, distracted and half-deranged, picking up false lights like a ship at sea, terror in his eyes and heart and soul. For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him in that far voice - the Power of untamed Distance - the Enticement of the Desolation that destroys. He knew in that moment all the pains of someone hopelessly and irretrievably lost, suffering the lust and travail of a soul in the final Loneliness. A vision of Defago, eternally hunted, driven and pursued across the skyey vastness of those ancient forests fled like a flame across the dark ruin of his thoughts...It seemed ages before he could find anything in the chaos of his disorganized sensations to which he could anchor himself steady for a moment, and think...The cry was not repeated; his own hoarse calling brought no response; the inscrutable forces of the Wild had summoned their victim beyond recall - and held him fast.("The Wendigo")
An insipid voice message or an incongruent emergence from the “other” world may disrupt our whole thinking system. If we are not able to deal with the fragmentation of our self and assess the deconstruction of our identity, a corny incident could easily capsize our being. A misinterpretation of facts and expectations may perturb our awareness and unsettle our perception. When “I” and “me” don’t get along very well, the road to oneness may be very often bumpy. (“Alors, tout a basculé”)
This is the key to the entire universe. You know what this is? It's not a microphone, this right here is your voice. This physical thing just amplifies it. Don't be afraid of your voice. You have a voice without a microphone. Use it and don't let anybody snuff you out and tell you don't have one.
Suddenly, as one, all the Greys stop talking and gape at Christian. What? Christian is singing softly to himself at the piano. Silence descends on us all as we strain to hear his soft, lyrical voice. I've heard him sing before, haven't they? He stops, suddenly conscious of the deathly hush that's fallen over the room. Kate glances questioningly at me and I shrug. Christian turns on the stool and frowns, embarrassed to realize he's become the center of attention.'Go on,' Grace urges softly. 'I've never heard you sing, Christian. Ever.
His body walks out onto the darkened stage , and a roar goes up from the crowd. He stands in front of the mic, and he can feel his face twist in a sneer-the Elvis sneer from his dreams-though he never told it to move. He is powerless now, a spectator at his own moment of glory.
Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. "And in the face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-'ems...""Alcoves," Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. "I call them alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue.
I believe that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of man's puny, inexhaustible, voice still talking! ...not simply because man alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because man has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion, sacrifice and endurance.
Privilege is when your voice is the norm but still you claim to be unheard.
When I am in a situation where I feel uncomfortable about speaking but it is necessary for me to speak, or if I feel 'put on the spot' my voice sounds strained, really weird, and it feels as if I have no control over how I sound in these situations. Sometimes then my voice is barely audible and I am frequently asked to repeat myself. Attempts at speaking are often embarrassing, shaming experiences for me. I sound quite different when speaking with someone I am more relaxed with, but I don't like the way my voice sounds at the best of times; I was horrified when I heard a recording of myself. Because of this inhibition about speaking, I have never learned to project my voice or to use it effectively. I often feel that I could no more use my vocal cords to break a silence, to get somebody's attention or to initiate an interaction than I could run through fire or do something dangerous in my life.
Silence introduced in a society that worships noise is like the Moon exposing the night. Behind darkness is our fear. Within silence our voice dwells. What is required from both is that we be still. We focus. We listen. We see and we hear. The unexpected emerges.
The individuals inside are frequently fighting that their individual voices be heard, while the walls of the place, which are the mask, and the perception, are reluctant to give over to the voices of the individuals. Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance. Part of the identity of a place is the tension between those in the margins, and those in the center, and they all live behind the walls which wear the tradition.
And I've been thinking: if the human race manages to destroy itself, as it often seems to want to do, or if some great disaster comes, as it did for the dinosaurs, then the birds will still manage to survive. When our gardens and fields and farms and woods have turned wild, when the park at the end of Falconer Road has turned into a wilderness, when our cities are in ruins, the birds will go on flying and singing and making their nests and laying their eggs and raising their young. It could be that the birds will exist for ever and for ever until the earth itself comes to an end, no matter what might happen to the other creatures. They'll sing until the end of time. So here's my thought: If there is a God, could it be that He's chosen the birds to speak for Him. Could it be true? The voice of God speaks through the beaks of birds.
again, her singing was her only absolute, the only thing that was completely her. a thousand classes hadn't given her this concrete insight: her voice was her place in the world, the home she leaves in the morning and returns to at night, in which she can be herself in her entirety and hope to be loved for all that she is and in spite of all she is.
We must carefully cultivate the voice that speaks to us because an internal voice is the ultimate narrator of our charming and delightful personal story or the documentarian of our tragic and disgraceful plotlines. Stories that we tell ourselves become our functional reality, which format structures the concourse of the nested emotional control panel that guides and girds us through the din of the present.
Being real doesn't mean being reckless, it means allowing La Voz Mitologica, The Mythological Voice, to speak. One does that by shutting off the ego for a while and letting that which wishes to speak, speak.
I lost my voice and my best friend tooOn swift, fierce winds and wings of blue, The cold rain fell where beams had shone, So I wrapped up tight and safe. Alone.But I missed my friend, I missed my voice, And my heart still whispered of another choiceTo break out of my binding, safe, and warm,And see what the world looked like after the storm.So I struggled free and was greeted byColorful brushstrokes across the sky,The melody of the summer breezeAnd blue wings like mine in hazel trees.On the soft, sweet air of the mountain glade,We gathered together in cool, green shade,And told our stories, beginnings to ends,And found our song in the hearts of new friends.
I get the sense that some people think that influence dilutes – that the more you are someone else, the less you are yourself, as if you were born with some innate distinct youness that is gradually sanded away by the corroding forces of conformity. That if you could somehow tune everything else out and really dig deep within yourself, you’d find your voice there, pure and independent.That’s bullshit. Your voice isn’t there, already made. You need to make your own voice. You need to make your own voice.
Ignore the voice that scorns and ridicules to ensure it does not mold you. Stifling subtleties like these, if unchecked, are oppressive. Freedom is a love supreme birthright, not a privilege to be governed by any other.
Sound has a profound effect on the senses. It can be both herd and felt. It can even be seen with the mind’s eye. It can almost be tasted and smelled. Sound can evoke responses of the five senses. Sound can paint a picture, produce a mood, trigger the senses to remember another time and place. From infancy we hear sound with our entire bodies. When I hear my own name, I have as much a sense of it entering my body through my back or my hand or my chest as through my ears. Sound speaks to the sensorium; the entire system of nerves that stimulates sensual responce.
Soon madness has worn you down. It’s easier to do what it says than argue. In this way, it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you, no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says you’re worthless, you agree. You plead for it to stop. You promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs.
This writing thing, it ain’t like that hip hop shit, City. For li’l niggas like you,” he told me, “this writing thing is like a gotdamn porta potty. It’s one li’l nigga at a time, shitting in the toilet, funking up the little space he get. And you shit a regular shit or a classic shit. Either way,” he said. “City, you gotta shit classic, then get your black ass on off the pot.” He actually grabbed my hand. “You probably think I’m hyping you just for the money. It ain’t just about the money. It’s really not. It’s about doing whatever it takes for you to have your voice heard. So I don’t know what you’re writing in that book you always carrying around, but it better be classic because you ain’t gonna get no two times to get it right, you hear me?
Chris was in the rocker, fully clothed, and was strumming idly onCory's guitar. "Dance, ballerina, dance," he softly chanted, and hissinging voice wasn't bad at all. Maybe we could work as musicians---atrio -if Carrie ever recovered enough to want a voice again.
I've never had a boy in here," Martin said in a serious voice. "I've never touched another man, as a matter of fact. . . .except for my father. That was my duty."Blomkvist's temples were pounding. He could not put his weight on his feet without being strangled. He tried to use his fingers to get a grip on the concrete wall behind him, but there was nothing to hold onto."It's time," Martin Vanger said.He put a hand on the strap and pulled down. Blomkvist instantly felt the noose cut into his neck."I've always wondered how a man tastes." He increased the pressure on the noose and leaned forward to kiss Blomkvist on the lips at the same time that a cold voice cut through the room."Hey you fucking creep, in this shithole I've got a monopoly on that one.
While women have come far in their ability to speak on their own behalf, there are many women who compromise what they want to say and what they actually say. Almost all women experience a dissonance between inner and outer. As a matter of emotional and sometimes physical survival, women have found it necessary to split their speech into two parts. One kind of speech is suppressed, occurring only in safe settings with intimates or within the ultimate safety of a woman's own mind.The second kind of speech is the publicly acceptable type that conforms to social expectations. The injunction to suppress certain feelings or thoughts can be so powerful that a woman may not be aware of it and may honestly believe that publicly acceptable speech is all she has in her. Carol Gilligan's work describes the destructive effects of this splitting of voice, especially in young girls who, as they embark on adolescence, have trouble speaking with clarity and strength. An emphasis on listening cultivates a stronger expression of voice. Listening is a crucial component in Imago Theory, where couples are taught to mirror, or repeat back, each other's thoughts, feelings, and needs as a way of building not only their partner's sense of self, but their own. Our core self becomes stronger when it is mirrored back. Voice that is not mirrored dies. When the process of mirroring is followed by validating and empathizing, a deep listening is done with feeling. All of us need validation -- that who we are, what we think, and how we feel does make sense. And the deepest form of listening is empathy, by which we are able to resonate on a soul level with the feelings and needs of one another.A wise proverb states that "Speech is silver, Silence is gold," reminding us of the forgotten value of silence. Feminist theorist Patrocinio Schweickart chose those words as the title of her article on talking and listening that parallels the inward and outward rhythm of Imago dialogue. She points our attention to the value of quiet as a tool that helps us notice the complex interplay of inner and outer that characterizes any creative process. For something new to happen, we need silence and receptivity as well as action and productivity. While some theorists see speaking as active and listening as passive, Schweickart and Imago Theory both point to the reality that both speaking and listening are active. Listening is a way of meaning-making. Theologian Nelle Morten refers to this dynamic as "hearing each other into speech."Ultimately, the development of authentic voice is a process that involves that involves a flow between speaking and listening. In listening, one becomes attuned to the surroundings so that speech becomes relevant and meaningful. This undulating rhythm of speaking and listening is the bedrock for dialogue in Imago Theory and for all of us who care about relationship.
It's amazing what the sound of a voice you've been longing to hear can do to your heart. He spoke five words just now, but in the time it took him to speak those five words, my heart was shredded and minced, then placed back inside my chest with the expectation that it should somehow know how to beat again.
...listening with absorbed attention more to her voice than to what she was saying, and thinking how like she was, flowering through her voice into beauty in the darkness, to some butterflies he had come across in the Swiss mountains the summer before. When they were folded up they were grey, mothlike creatures that one might easily overlook, but directly they opened their wings they became the loveliest things in the world, all rose-colour or heavenly blue. So had she been to him in the daylight that afternoon,--an ordinary woman, not in any way noticeable; but now listen to her, opening into beauty on the wings of her voice!
When we were young, we were told that poetry is about voice, about finding a voice and speaking with this voice, but the older I get I think it’s not about voice, it’s about listening and the art of listening, listening with attention. I don’t just mean with the ear; bringing the quality of attention to the world. The writers I like best are those who attend.
At first, he talked about the flowers in the garden behind his country house in Surrey. His voice still had its Midlands accent but was soft now and barely audible. He knew the plants by name and took a few minutes with each of them: ageratum, coreopsis, echinacea, rudbeckia. The yarrow, he said, had rose-red flowers on two-foot stems. Achillea millefolium, the plant Achilles used to heal wounds.
Everything she wanted to tell her, was unable to tell her, because she was afraid of hearing her own voice come out of her heart and be covered with blood, and then she poured all the blood into these syllables, and she offered it to her to drink like this : “You have it.
He was dimly angry with himself, he did not know why. It was that he had struck his wife. He had forgotten it, but was miserable about it, notwithstanding. And this misery was the voice of the great Love that had made him and his wife and the baby and Diamond, speaking in his heart, and telling him to be good. For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds. On Mount Sinai, it was thunder; in the cabman's heart it was misery; in the soul of St John it was perfect blessedness.
There is a fragrance in the air, a certain passage of a song, an old photograph falling out from the pages of a book, the sound of somebody's voice in the hall that makes your heart leap and fills your eyes with tears. Who can say when or how it will be that something easters up out of the dimness to remind us of a time before we were born and after we will die?
I looked at him and the other two people whose names I’d just learned. “So . . . so this is home then?”Akinli looked at me, perplexed, then turned to Ben and Julie.“She said some girls left her here and told her it was home. That’s all she knows. She doesn’t even know you.” Julie wiped at her tears, trying to calm herself.He moved his eyes back to me as quickly as he could manage. “Kahlen? You remember me, right?”I stared into this face, searching for something familiar. I didn’t recognize the angle of his chin, the length of his fingers. I didn’t know the slope of his shoulder or the shape of his lips.“Akinli, right?” I asked. This poor boy. I pitied him in the depths of my heart. Clearly, he’d already been going through something, and I could see the last scrap of fight he had in him dying with those words.“Yes.”“I don’t remember ever seeing you before in my life. I’m sorry.”He pressed his lips together as if he was swallowing the urge to cry.“But,” I said, “I know your voice. I know it as if it were my own.
The task of the moral philosopher-thinker is to support and strengthen the voice of human conscience, to recognize what is good or what is bad for people, whether they are good or bad for society in a period of evolution. May be a "voice crying in the wilderness", but only if that voice remains lively and uncompromising, it is possible to transform the desert into fertile land.
Read good writing, and don’t live in the present. Live in the deep past, with the language of the Koran or the Mabinogion or Mother Goose or Dickens or Dickinson or Baldwin or whatever speaks to you deeply. Literature is not high school and it’s not actually necessary to know what everyone around you is wearing, in terms of style, and being influenced by people who are being published in this very moment is going to make you look just like them, which is probably not a good long-term goal for being yourself or making a meaningful contribution. At any point in history there is a great tide of writers of similar tone, they wash in, they wash out, the strange starfish stay behind, and the conches.
I am a human, I have a voice and I'm not shy to raise it for honesty and truth against mistreatment and lies. I'd rather die than go silent because I know my silence will never protect me from malice and my pretence will never give me peace and joy. Love me or hate me because I stand for truth no matter what and the truth will set me free.
There are so many different ways for someone to say your name. I’m not sure I ever realized that before I met Jesse. Prior to him, it was just Rose calling out to me with love and affection or Gideon relaying his quiet approval or disapproval. Crisp, clear notes. When Jesse says my name, it’s a chord, a mash-up of several intense emotions all reflected in two syllables.
Anna's voice wasn't a beautiful voice - rough edged and sorrowful, a bit used, somehow male and female at once. Yet it had more vibrancy to it than most Danish voices, which were often thin and white and too pretty to trigger a shiver. Anna's voice had the heat of the south; it warmed Einar, as if her throat were read with coals.
Never had he thought, never once, that such a woman existed, one who stood so close to God that God's own voice poured from her. How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice. It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching, lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven. It was a miracle and he wept for the gift of bearing witness.
In the desert I often whisper. Junipers are excellent sounding boards. They have been shaped by wing. Rocks seem to care nothing about what I say, yet when I speak to them, they feel porous, capable of receiving my words and taking them in as part of their history of brokenness.
Conversation is the vehicle for change. We test our ideas. We hear our own voice in a concert with another. And inside those pauses of listening, we approach new territories of thought. A good argument, call it a discussion, frees us. Words fly out of our mouths like threatened birds. Once released, they may never return. If they do, they have chosen home and the bird-worms are calmed into an ars poetica.
The voice, for its part, has the peculiarity that when released it carries the weight of the body from which it has come; since that weight is erotic reality, lovers believe they can embrace words of love, they believe they can make them into a continuum of love that will last forever.
I felt his voice. Fingers rubbing moss. Smoke curling. Wood worn and smoothed over time. His voice had darkness in it that hovered close to the ground, like a mist hanging over a lake deep in a forest at dusk. A bolt of sea-green velvet. A sensation as much as a series of sounds. It reverberated inside me.
For the soul-wounded woman. Your healed voice is my favorite sound. Your hurts, they walk right into our hearts; but your story of healing --- that can change lives. Never be afraid to find and use your voice.
All I know: I could only encounter you, my oasis, coming out of a desert. Deserted myself. This is all right. My futureless and solitary self. When suddenly I hear the voice of the springs--Right away you made me want to sing. To cry. Then to drink. But after the desert, the merest trickle of water sounds like a storm. And ever since, Promethea's every murmur shakes my life like an earthquake. I was asleep. I was not thirsty. It would have been possible for me not to hear the first three tears. Ever since I never sleep. I listen.
We look so very different from the way we sound. It’s a shock, similar to hearing your own voice for the first time, when you’re forced to wonder how the rest of you comes across if you sound nothing like the way you think you sound. You feel dislodged from the old shoe of yourself.
In the last analysis, be always of whatever truth you would live.For fire flames but in the heart of a colder fire.All voice is but echo caught from a soundless voice.Height is not deprivation of valley, nor defect of desire,But defines, for the fortunate, that joy in which all joys should rejoice.
Women must show their public face. We must help to work out our own community problems. We must insist on having equal voices and equal responsibilities. . . In large part, success depends on changing minds at home, in the streets, and at the workplace - not just in legislatures and in the courts. Each and every one of us has and important role to play in completing that task.