Sound Quotations

It's never what you say, but how you make it sound sincere.

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.

Every actor-performer says this, and it sounds so irritating, but I'm not the most outgoing person.

There's always haters, no matter what you're doing - whether they're complaining that everything you do sounds the same, or it's too different.

You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.

I really love the EMS Vocoder 2000, which is a pretty nice little box. You put one thing in one end and another in the other end, and you're able to change vocals by the sound and do a lot - it's just got a great sound. But the thing is, it's a bit clunky, so it's kind of hard to use it.

Automobiles have always been part of my life, and I'm sure they always will be. What is it about them that moves me? The sound of a great engine, the unity and uniqueness of an automobile's engineering and coachwork, the history of the company and the car, and, of course, the sheer beauty of the thing.

When my sister and I were kids, swimming down in Charleston, there was this pizza parlor that had this old Dixieland band play, and I just loved Louis Armstrong and the sound of his voice, and I got up there with the band and started singing Louis Armstrong songs when I was a kid. I have no idea why, but I did it and I loved it.

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

Sometimes I just hit the keyboard in a way I'd like the rhythm of the tracks to sound.

That rockabilly sound wasn't as simple as I thought it was.

You listen to Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio in it, and it's not Black Sabbath. They should have just called it 'Heaven and Hell' right from the beginning. Because you listen to that 'Heaven and Hell' album, that doesn't sound anything close to Black Sabbath.

A rich man cannot enjoy a sound mind nor a sound body without exercise and abstinence; and yet these are truly the worst ingredients of poverty.

I conceived of an instrument that would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra. The orchestra plays mechanically, using mechanical energy; the conductor just moves his hands, and his movements have an effect on the music artistry.

I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment. I also will use any gadget or device that I find that helps me achieve the sort of sound on the guitar that I want to get.

A lot of my albums that I've done, a lot of the songs have been the first take. It's before you mess with it too much - you can take away all the spontaneity and the emotion of something by trying to make it sound perfect.

I like to focus on making the music sound simple and true, and very lush and full. I think music should take you to somewhere else where you have the space to contemplate or exercise your imagination. All the while you should be feeling real good, like when you have a delicious and decadent meal, macaroni and cheese or foie gras.

I am very harsh on myself. I can point out a list. My nose is very strange. I have a very round face. I sound so ungrateful. Obviously I'm being hard on myself. Whether it's body dysmorphia, or whatever it is, I can always find something wrong.

I go where the sound of thunder is.

Useless knowledge can be made directly contributory to a force of sound and disinterested public opinion.

It's sometimes better to pretend I don't hear the sound of somebody in the nearby woods with a shotgun.

If we are to perpetuate the state, we must not only produce citizens, but good citizens - men and women of sound bodies, clear minds and clean souls.

For a scientist, it is a unique experience to live through a period in which his field of endeavour comes to bloom - to be witness to those rare moments when the dawn of understanding finally descends upon what appeared to be confusion only a while ago - to listen to the sound of darkness crumbling.

As soon as I started writing the first batch, I had a vision. I saw me on stage playing a certain type of music. I want to take these blues melodies over aggressive guitars. I heard the sound I wanted to make. I knew what I wanted to do. It wasn't ever there before.

I guess this is gonna sound kind of weird, but I'm not scared for myself for dying. Because I believe all these places are temporary. This is just one shell. Because we Hawaiians live in both worlds.

A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas.

You see, money isn't everything - I know it sounds corny but I really mean it - success means a lot more.

You get a heck of a sound from the church. Can't you hear it in my voice?

The pull between sound and syntax creates a kind of musical tension in the language that interests me.

Not everybody likes or understands a drum solo, so I like to bring in effects and sounds to keep their interest.

I love the sounds and the power of pounding water, whether it is the waves or a waterfall.

All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago.

It sounds so trite but in relationships, you have to communicate.

I know it sounds a bit corny, but I do think that beauty and sexiness come from within.

In poetic language, in which the sign as such takes on an autonomous value, this sound symbolism becomes an actual factor and creates a sort of accompaniment to the signified.

I don't know many singers who actually do like the sound of their own voice.

Hell, I ain't paid to make good lines sound good. I'm paid to make bad lines sound good.

This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist.

As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.

Asking someone to describe what something sounds like is like telling a blind person to guess what I look like.

The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.

Obedience is the primary object of all sound education.

Since I first fell in love with choral music when I was 18 and began composing at 21, I've been listening to these recordings of British choirs. I just fell in love with that sound - that pure, clean, pristine sound - and I think it's probably been the biggest influence on my sound.

I don't care much about music. What I like is sounds.

For me, it doesn't matter how difficult something is, it doesn't matter how impressive it is, it's what sounds best that really counts.

It sounds really arrogant, but my music's my favourite music ever. I prefer it to anyone else's.

Sound is a movement which is handed on from atom to atom in a gas through which the sound is passing, just as a chain of workers pass buckets of water to a fire. The quicker the workers move their hands and arms, the quicker the water moves.

Germany's Angela Merkel exudes an atmosphere of elderly exhaustion and pooped-out pessimism. Britain's David Cameron, though by nature exuberant, feels he has to look and sound glum. And France's leader, Francois Hollande, seems determined to drive every successful businessman out of the country.

When I'm in the mode of feeling positive about love, I don't really feel the need to mark it down in song. In fact, I know what that song would sound like, and I would not subject anybody to that.

I sing 'I Have Confidence' from 'The Sound of Music' as Judy Garland, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Elaine Stritch and Julie Andrews - each alternating lines.

Most of the fiction on the California Gold Rush makes it sound like one grand, boyish adventure. However, when you read the real history, you realize that it wasn't that way at all.

It may sound too good to be true, but once you've seen the happiest people in your life who have nothing, you really start rethinking what the world, and society, tells us that we need to be happy.

I hate the beep beep of the car, when I put in motion and I have not fasten my seat belt. From how annoying this sound is to me every morning, I understand immediately how the day will be.

After a sound public education, I attended Penn and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After being drafted into the military and studying Indonesian, I emerged as a writer, not a painter.

Half an hour of exercise in the morning makes for better interactions all day. Then a sound night of sleep gives me energy to tackle the next day. I am a more active parent, a better spouse, and more engaged in my work when I eat, move, and sleep well.

I invent by analogy. I thought, 'It's commonplace that you can mix colors, smear them together to get new emerging colors. Likewise, you can mix radio waves to get new frequencies.' So, I wondered, 'Why can't you mix sound to get new sounds?'

Most of the time when people work with an artist, they don't give them what they need for the future, they give them what their last album sounded like. So it's like, 'Oh, One Republic needs a song, why don't we send them 10 that sound like 'Apologize?'

My trumpeting sounds like a goose farting in the fog.

I love finding out why people don't love things. And if you ask people why they don't like things, particularly when they get into this sort of culture box, you find out that they're not liking things because of what people are going to think about them, and not because of what the things actually sound like.

Christian, non-Christian, we're going to miss the mark. We're going to make mistakes. How you handle those mistakes and get more fundamentally sound spiritually in dealing with those mistakes I think have a direct impact - not only on your spiritual life, but those around you.

I have this old '57 Porsche Speedster, and the way the door closes, I'll just sit there and listen to the sound of the latch going, 'cluh-CLICK-click.' That door! I live for that door. Whatever the opposite of planned obsolescence is, that's what I'm into.

Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse, and no place in our nation's police departments.

After you've written a story, the thing to do is sell it. Sounds simple, and it is, if one will follow certain basic principles of salesmanship.

I have to choose my words carefully because I don't want to sound like one of those who goes on about how things were better in my day.

A lot of the time, when I'm choreographing, I'm not thinking about what movement look best next to the next movement - I'm actually thinking about what song and what sound sounds right next to the next thing. So kind of choreographing as if I'm always making a mix tape, so to speak.

Rave music sounds like an electronic disco version of '30s Universal monster movies.

If only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.

I prefer to sing in the shower because the acoustics make you sound great, baby.

Anybody can make something up and have it sound believable. The hard part is remembering all the lies you've told, and all the people you've told them to, and then living the lies that have become your life.

Without sound conservation and management measures, fisheries will quickly become depleted and a basic component of global food security will be lost.

You make the movie through the cinematography - it sounds quite a simple idea, but it was like a huge revelation to me.

Hip Nip just sounds groovy. A drummer laid it on me.

Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.

When you hear a large symphony orchestra. for instance, in a concert hall, there's a big, sweeping sound that just doesn't get on to a record.

Since I was doing all of it myself, I had to decide where I wanted to go with the songs, how to proceed with the chords, if the sound was alright, and all that detail on my own.

Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.

At the same time, one of the things I noticed was that the moment there was any kind of audio attached to virtual reality, it really improved the experience, even though the audio didn't feel like a sound engineer or composer had been anywhere near it.

One always has to remember these days where the garbage pail is, because it's so easy to make sounds, and to put sounds together into something that appears to be music, but it's just as hard as it always was to make good music.

Composition gives proper meaning to the natural streams of sound that penetrate the world.

I really want to meet and work with JJ Abrams. Everyone talks about what a nice director he is, and he has kids and stuff, so he sounds really awesome, not to mention he makes awesome movies.

We should read music in the same way that an educated adult will read a book: in silence, but imagining the sound.

There is a sound that comes from gospel music that doesn't come from anything else. It is a sound of peace. It is a sound of, 'I'm going to make it through all of this.

Listening to soft music and the sound of the ocean is quite relaxing to me.

Drums all have their own particulars - each drum has a place where they sound the best - where they ring out and resonate the best, and the head surface isn't too loose or too tight, mainly so you get a good rebound off of the head.

This sounds an extraordinary statement to make, but in fact all truth is very ordinary.

I was sent to boarding school - a grim place. The only good thing the headmaster did for us was every Sunday evening in the winter he would show us films in the chapel. He couldn't afford a sound projector, so we saw silent films, which you could then still rent from photographic shops.

I'm just attracted to the action element of science fiction. It's great to sit in the editing room with the director and sound engineers and to create the feeling where your heart is racing and you're sitting at the edge of your seat and you find yourself holding your breath.

Whenever I dream of playing a perfect round of golf, which I rarely do more than a dozen times a day, I picture myself on one of my favorite British Open-style links, and in particular the great courses of the west of Ireland, whose holes flow through naturally bunkered dunesland never far from the sight or sound of surf.

There's always so much more that can be conveyed on screen visually in the expressions of people's faces, in their bodies, in their body language. And also with sound design, with music.

It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years.

I was trying to find an original style that didn't sound like Tony Bennett or anyone else. So I prayed about it, woke up with this high voice, and by 1954, I was going to amateur nights and winning.

I think I could walk into any music shop anywhere and with a guitar off the rack, a couple of basic pedals and an amp I could sound just like me. There's no devices, customized or otherwise, that give me my sound.

It's a relief to hear the rain. It's the sound of billions of drops, all equal, all equally committed to falling, like a sudden outbreak of democracy. Water, when it hits the ground, instantly becomes a puddle or rivulet or flood.

If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.

If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed.

For too long, the Democratic majority in Washington has failed to see the value in the sound model of working hard and living within your means.

When I decided to take writing seriously, I did a lot of reading and analyzing of the books I liked, and came up with what I thought were pretty sound plotting and structure basics.

You can't just pillory the teachers unions and sound the free market trumpet. We must visit the failing schools. We must talk to the mother who desperately wants more for her child and offer a constructive way out. We can't simply lambaste... food stamps or decry dependency.

I love British cursing - the cadence of it, the joy in the sound of the words, and the vulgarity of it.

Before you worry about what genre it is, about whether it's a loop or a drum, it's about what suits the song. It's using what's within your reach, but also reaching for everything you can. I don't know if I always get it right, because I don't know every sound yet.