Quotes & Sayings About A Child's Voice

Why didn't you become a sorcerer, Geralt? Weren't you ever attracted by the Art? Be honest.'
'I will. I was.'
'Why, then, didn't you follow the voice of that attraction?'
'I decided it would be wiser to follow the voice of good sense.'
'Meaning?'
'Years of practice in the witcher's trade have taught me not to bite off more than I can chew. Do you know, Vilgefortz, I once knew a dwarf, who, as a child, dreamed of being an elf. What do you think; would he have become one had he followed the voice of attraction? — Andrzej Sapkowski

You're not safe to go back there," he said.
"I'm going," I returned.
"We'll see."
Jeez, there was just no shaking this guy.
"You do know that there's this little thing called the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote?" I asked.
"I heard of that," he said and there was a smile in his voice.
"And there's this whole movement called fem ... in ... is ... im." I said it slowly, like he was a dim child. "Where women started working, demanding equal pay for equal work, raising their voices on issues of the day, taking back the night, stuff like that."
He rolled into me, which made me roll onto my back.
"Sounds familiar."
"Do you have an encyclopedia? Maybe we can look it up. If the words are too big for you to read, I'l read it out loud and explain as I go along."
He got up on his elbow. "Only if you do it naked." I slapped his shoulder. — Kristen Ashley

Though she'd try to do otherwise, she had never been able to stop cluttering her present with her past. Now somebody she didn't know would pack her treasures into plastic bags and carry them away. A life, at its end, is a pile of cloth and paper, and goods that can be bagged and labelled. None of the best things - the voice and the laugh, the tilt of the head, the things seen and felt and spoken - are allowed to stay behind. — Sonya Hartnett

I have a lot of LGBT friends and family members and I've always supported the community, not only as a child but as an adult, and I think it's important to voice that. — Lana Parrilla

One Sunday evening when it was very hot and breathlessly still we sere sitting here in this room in the dusk. He switched on the record player. Liszt. We sat. As I say, here. In this very room. We listened to the piece. Neither of us said a word. That's when he took my hand and we went out into the garden. In a quiet voice he said that I wasn't like any other person in the world and that some people wouldn't understand that. They wouldn't want me to be the way I was. They'd want to change me. They'd try to order me about and make me into the kind of person they wanted me to be. Since I was still a child there would be little I could do except stay alone, stay out of trouble, and make myself very small in the world. — Laird Koenig

Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million? Lacy would be the keeper of those, because it was the only way for that part of Peter to stay alive. For every recollection of him that involved a bullet or a scream, she would have a hundred others: of a little boy splashing in a pond, or riding a bicycle for the first time, or waving from the top of a jungle gym. Of a kiss good night, or a crayoned Mother's Day card, or a voice off-key in the shower. She would string them together - the moments when her child had been just like other people's. She would wear them, precious pearls, every day of her life; because if she lost them, then the boy she had loved and raised and known would really be gone. — Jodi Picoult

He says, "Your husband fucked my wife."
We look at each other and this time it's different. Now I know him.
"My husband didn't fuck your wife." My voice is soft. Not amorous, but the tone of a bewildered child. "They had a relationship, then came home and fucked us. — Eric Jerome Dickey

At the moment Kay was closing Emily McNab's casket for the last time, the solemn moment had been pierced by a small, but insistent voice from the back of the church. An inquisitive little girl wanted to know, "Mommy, who's that lady in the suitcase?" With the exception of the child's mortified mother, the congregation had enjoyed a good laugh. — Delora Dennis

How can a person expect to escape their destiny, Merry? That is the question."
A silence, then a small, practical voice. "There's always the train, I guess."
Juniper thought at first she'd misheard; she glanced at Meredith and realized that the child was completely serious.
"I mean, there are buses, too, but I think the train would be faster. A smoother ride, as well. — Kate Morton

Americans are citizens from the moment they are born, and not when they become twenty-one years of age. By then, if they have not performed the acts of a citizen in a democracy, it is too late. They remain irresponsible and therefore immature. From the first grade on, the child should be taught his duties as a citizen, and given his voice in municipal matters and then in state and nation. — Pearl S. Buck

What's going on here?" asked a deep voice at her elbow.

Anne turned to find her guardian standing beside her. He looked solidly masculine and incredibly competent to deal with the child's wizened master and even with the spectators to what had turned into a near spectacle. — Gayle Wilson

So the next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.
We know from myths and fairy tales that there are many different kind of powers in this world. One child is given a light saber, another a wizard's education. — Susan Cain

I am a child of the Milky Way. The night is my mother. I am made of the dust of stars. Every atom in my body was forged in a star. When the universe exploded into being, already the bird longed for the wood and the fish for the pool. When the first galaxies fell into luminous clumps, already matter was struggling toward consciousness. The star clouds of Sagittarius are a burning bush. If there is a voice in Sagittarius, I'd be a fool not to listen. If God's voice in the night is a scrawny cry, then I'll prick up my ears. If night's faint lights fail to knock me off my feet, then I'll sit back on a dark hillside and wait and watch. A hint here and a trait there. Listening and watching. Waiting, always waiting, for the tingle in the spine. — Chet Raymo

Candy. He spoke of candy. Was he still in the child's world where candy stood for something sweet enough to hold back tears? I had grown older, and had lost enthusiasm for childish delights. I wanted what every teenager wants
freedom to develop into a woman, freedom to have full control over my life! Though I tried to tell him this, my voice had dried up along with my tears. — V.C. Andrews

But that was long ago. She has long since lost interest in motives, in the details of other women's crimes. Even the hatchet makes its usual sense. A mother who loves her child with all her self is only so far from the hatchet anyway; one casual swing and it's done. Hatred, love, all muddled up in that space inside a whisper, when the words don't matter anymore, when the baby's half asleep and you can carry it all the way there if you want, on nothing but the tone of your voice. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. Sing it as softly as you like - the words clench their own teeth. The child still falls. — Emily Ruskovich

Exhausted after a full day of treating patients, William Carlos Williams angrily answered the phone. "Doctor," said a woman's voice, "my child has swallowed a mouse." "Then get him to swallow a cat," he replied, and slammed down the receiver. — Ross Wetzsteon

For some young artists, it can take a bit of time to discover which tools (which medium, or genre, or career pathway) will truly suit them best. For me, although many different art forms attract me, the tools that I find most natural and comfortable are language and oil paint; I've also learned that as someone with a limited number of spoons it's best to keep my toolbox clean and simple. My husband, by contrast, thrives with a toolbox absolutely crowded to bursting, working with language, voice, musical instruments, puppets, masks animated on a theater stage, computer and video imagery, and half a dozen other things besides, no one of these tools more important than the others, and all somehow working together. For other artists, the tools at hand might be needles and thread; or a jeweller's torch; or a rack of cooking spices; or the time to shape a young child's day ...
To me, it's all art, inside the studio and out. At least it is if we approach our lives that way. — Terri Windling

My mother had comforted me with tales ever since I was small. Sometimes they helped me peel a problem like an onion, or gave me ideas about what to do; other times, they calmed me so much that I would fall into a soothing sleep. My father used to say that her tales were better than the best medicine. Sighing, I burrowed into my mother's body like a child, knowing that the sound of her voice would be a balm on my heart. — Anita Amirrezvani

You've always been a know-it-all. Well, you're about to find out how much you don't know."
"Believe me," I muttered, "I'm the first one to admit that I have no clue about any of this stuff. I had nothing to do with it. This isn't my baby."
"Then give it to Social Services." She was getting agitated. "Whatever happens to him will be your fault, not mine. Get rid of him if you can't handle the responsibility."
"I can handle it," I said, my voice quiet. "It's okay, Mom. I'll take care of him. You don't have to worry about anything."
She subsided like a child who had just been mollified by a lollipop. "You'll have to learn the way I did," she said after a moment, reaching down to adjust her toe ring.
A hint of satisfaction edged her tone as she added, "The hard way. — Lisa Kleypas

For years I lived my life suspended, trapped by the past, unable to move into the future. Like every wounded child I just wanted to turn back time and be in that paradise again, in that moment of remembered rapture where I felt loved, where I felt a sense of belonging. We can never go back. I know that now. We can go forward .We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago, when we were little and had no voice to speak the heart's longing. All the years of my life I thought I was searching for love I found, retrospectively, to be years where I was simply trying to recover what had been lost, to return to the first home, to get back the rapture of our first love. I was not really ready to love or be loved in the present. I was still mourning
clinging to the broken heart of girlhood, to broken connections. When that mourning ceased I was able to love again. — Bell Hooks

Thank you." Lib tried to think of some more conversational note to end on. "It's always intrigued me," she said, letting her voice rise, "why you Sisters of Mercy are called walking nuns." "We walk out into the world, you see, Mrs. Wright. We take the usual vows of any order - poverty, chastity, obedience - but also a fourth, service." Lib had never heard the nun say so much before. "What kind of service?" Anna broke in: "To the sick, the poor, and the ignorant." "Well remembered, child," said the nun. "We vow to be of use." As — Emma Donoghue

She jumped out from hiding. "You killed me, you son of a bitch!"
The Windigo stopped. As its bulbous red eyes fell on her, it occurred to her that, even though she was dead, there might be fates that could befall her spirit she should probably try to avoid. Swallowing, she stepped back.
But the Windigo made no move toward her. Its voice was a thing of ice cracking in the middle of a frozen lake. "I have eaten your flesh already, child. Your spirit is of no use to me. I need fresh meat and hot blood." Turning away, it continued through the forest.
"What? That's it? Take my body, then forget about me?" she yelled after its retreating back. "Obviously a guy," she muttered. — Douglas Smith

Parents can plant magic in a child's mind through certain words spoken with some thrilling quality of voice, some uplift of the heart and spirit. — Robert MacNeil

Sol! Take your daughter, your only daughter Rachel, Whom you love, and go to the world called Hyperion and offer her there as a burnt offering at one of the places of which I shall tell you." Sol hesitated and looked back to Rachel. The baby's eyes were deep and luminous as she looked up at her father. Sol felt the unspoken yes. Holding her tightly, he stepped forward into the darkness and raised his voice against the silence: "Listen! There will be no more offerings, neither child nor parent. There will be no more sacrifices for anyone other than our fellow human. The time of obedience and atonement is past. — Dan Simmons

I ... What are you saying, Zsadist?" she stammered, even though she'd heard every word.
He glanced back down at the pencil in his hand and then turned to the table. Flipping the spiral notebook to a new page, he bent way over and labored on top of the paper for quite a while. Then he ripped the sheet free.
His hand was shaking as he held it out. "It's messy."
Bella took the paper. In a child's uneven block letters there were three words: I LOVE YOU
Her lips flattened tight as her eyes stung. The handwriting got wavy and then disappeared.

"Maybe you can't read it," he said in a small voice. "I can do it over."

She shook her head. "I can read it just fine. It's ... beautiful."
"I don't expect anything back. I mean ... I know that you don't ... feel that for me anymore. But I wanted you to know. It's important that you knew. — J.R. Ward

Something snapped, said Madeline. She saw Perry's hand shining back in its graceful, practiced arc. She heard Bonnie's guttural voice. It occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife and newborn baby or sleeping with your child's nanny. And then there was the sort of evil which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts. — Liane Moriarty

Lowering my chin, I sighed. What my Seth wanted, I wanted, but ... daimons? I rubbed my hands on my bent knees and sighed again - louder, like a petulant child.
Aiden's back twisted as he turned his head. "What, Alex?"
"Nothing," I mumbled.
"There's something." He leaned back, tipping his head against the bar. "You have that tone."
I frowned at the wall. "What tone?"
"The 'I have something I want to say but I shouldn't' tone" A little bit of humor seeped into his voice. "I'm well familiar with it."
Well ... damn. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The day after we met," Fatima said, "you told me that you loved me. Then, you taught me something of the universal language and the Soul of the World. Because of that, I have become a part of you." The boy listened to the sound of her voice, and thought it to be more beautiful than the sound of the wind in the date palms. "I have been waiting for you here at this oasis for a long time. I have forgotten about my past, about my traditions, and the way in which men of the desert expect women to behave. Ever since I was a child, I have dreamed that the desert would bring me a wonderful present. Now, my present has arrived, and it's you." The — Paulo Coelho

You don't understand,' she said, and there was a puzzling trace of resentment in her voice. 'Children never do. The love a parent has for a child, there's nothing else like it. No other love so consuming. — Cassandra Clare

Never trample on any soul though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better life: the voice of God that whispers to it: You are not what you ought to be, and you are not what you can be. You are still God's child, still an immortal soul. You may rise yet. and fight a good fight yet, and be a man once more, after the likeness of God who made you, and Christ who died for you! — Charles Kingsley

I was talking about children that have not been properly house-trained. Left to their own impulses and indulged by doting or careless parents almost all children are yahoos. Loud, selfish, cruel, unaffectionate, jealous, perpetually striving for attention, empty-headed, for ever prating or if words fail them simply bawling, their voices grown huge from daily practice: the very worst company in the world. But what I dislike even more than the natural child is the affected child, the hulking oaf of seven or eight that skips heavily about with her hands dangling in front of her
a little squirrel or bunny-rabbit
and prattling away in a baby's voice. — Patrick O'Brian

Evie is our beautiful, dark-haired, green-eyed child,' I say. I can hear the tremor in my voice. 'Like many seven-year-old girls, she's obsessed with princesses. We think she looks more like a fairy. She loves Lego and painting. She laughs easily. She has pretend tea parties in a tree in our garden and invites all her dolls. She wants to be an artist when she grows up. Please find her. Please bring her back to us. We miss her beyond measure. She is the love of our life. — Sanjida Kay

I am not a child, and I know plenty of love. Love is wanting to be with that person for the rest of your life no matter of the consequences. Love is being willing to sacrifice your life for somebody else." He met his father's eyes, "Love is seeing the good in somebody regardless of their title or station in life. Love is so painful and yet so wonderful that it is worth it!" Emane pushed himself back up again from the table speaking deliberately. "Love is understanding that someday you might lose the person that you love, but that every day you get to spend with them is worth the risk. Love is taking the good with the bad." His voice rose with each sentiment. "Love is trust. Love is wanting to understand even when you don't." Staring at his father, Emane added, "I know of love, Father, and I did not learn it from Ciera. — Devri Walls

My grief is my castle, which like an eagle's nest is built high up on the mountain peaks among the clouds; nothing can storm it. From it I fly down into reality to seize my prey; but i do not remain down there, I bring it home with me, and this prey is a picture I weave into the tapestries of my palace. There I live as one dead. I immerse everything I have experienced in a baptism of forgetfulness unto an eternal remembrance. Everything finite and accidental is forgotten and erased. Then I sit like an old man, grey-haired and thoughtful, and explain the pictures in a voice as soft as a whisper; and at my side a child sits and listens, although he remembers everything before I tell it. — Soren Kierkegaard

Do they really think that a limited intellect means a child can't feel viciousness in a person's touch or hear anger in the tone of their voice? — Martin Pistorius

Miss Mandible wants to make love to me but she hesitates because I am officially a child; I am, according to the records, according to the gradebook on her desk, according to the card index in the principal's office, eleven years old. There is a misconception here, one that I haven't quite managed to get cleared up yet. I am in fact thirty-five, I've been in the Army, I am six feet one, I have hair in the appropriate places, my voice is a barritone, I know very well what to do with Miss Mandible if she ever makes up her mind. — Donald Barthelme

Have you ever watched a child learning to walk?
Before this week, I never had, but there's a certain grace to it. Well, if not grace, then tenacity. Fall down nine times
get up ten. And the tenth time you get where you're going, you don't stop, not for obstacles, not for other people telling you to stop. You don't listen to anything but that inner voice until you arrive where you want to be. — Ann Aguirre

I want my mother to know that I may not be what she expected, but I am someone who tries to be good. I cannot give my mother the kids we might have liked with Mammy's eyes or Aunt Bess's crazy, gentle ways. I cannot bring her the child who sings with my father's voice. But I can wait with her through these strange days for whatever is going to happen. I can sit on a chair by her bed when she is too flustered to lay her head down on her pillow and stay with her until she can close her eyes. . — George Hodgman

It was a woman's voice, high and sweet, with a strange music in it like none that he had ever heard and a sadness that he thought might break his heart. Bran squinted, to see her better. It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doe's beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer
large and liquid, gold and green, slitted like a cat's eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colors, with vines and twigs and withered flowers woven through it.
"Who are you?" Meera Reed was asking.
Bran knew. "She's a child. A child of the forest. — George R R Martin

Child, I done had just about enough of your sackdraggin' Now get upstairs and take your bath and put some decent clothes on. You one sorry sight. You been wearing that old ratty robe since baby Jesus was born." She whacked the spoon against the bowl again, sending a glop of mayonnaise flying. "And looka that hair. Don't look at me in that tone of voice; gone and get up there while I fix this dinner. Winona, baby, go bring in the mail. I don't want this child out there cause it's too many old people in this neighborhood with bad hearts. — Rosalyn Story

She reached out and touched the king's face, cupping his cheek in her hand.
"Just a nightmare," he said, his voice still rough.
The queen's voice was cool. "How embarrassing," she said, looking at his maimed arm.
The king looked up then, and followed her gaze. If it was embarrassing to wake like a child screaming from a nightmare, how much more embarrassing to be the reason your husband woke screaming. A quick smile visited the king's face. "Ouch," he said, referring to more than the pain in his side. "Ouch," he said again as the queen gathered him into her arms. — Megan Whalen Turner

The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in - let me in!' 'Who are you?' I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. 'Catherine Linton,' it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of LINTON? I had read EARNSHAW twenty times for Linton) - 'I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!' As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. — Emily Bronte

One night when my longing for her was like a fire burning out of control in my heart and my head, I wrote her a letter that just seemed to go on and on. I poured out my whole heart in it, never looking back to see what I'd said because I was afraid cowardice would make me stop. I didn't stop, and when a voice in my head clamored that it would be madness to mail such a letter, that I would be giving her my naked heart to hold in her hand, I ignored it with a child's breathless disregard of the consequences. — Stephen King

When I hear that young people have come to the theater for the first time to listen to opera, I'm very happy. Because it's the same thing that happened to me as a child. When I first heard the tenor voice, I immediately fell in love with this kind of music. — Andrea Bocelli

Soon their child would start talking and expressing his thoughts. After all, their son was amazing. "You're doing it again," Bay accused with a laugh in her voice. "You're doing that whole rooster thing where you thrust your chest out and show off your son, proving that your p-e-n-i-s can be wielded like the mightiest of swords. — Carrie Ann Ryan

The doors between the old man today and the child are still open, wide open. I can stroll through my grandmother's house and know exactly where the pictures are, the furniture was, how it looked, the voice, the smells. I can move from my bed at night today to my childhood in less than a second. — Ingmar Bergman

Dinna worrit yourself, man," said Jamie's voice. "You'll learn. It's a bit difficult, isn't it, when your cock doesna stick out any further than your belly button?" I stuck my head around the corner, to find him seated on a chopping block, engaged in converse with his namesake, who was struggling manfully with the folds of his smock. "What are you doing with the child?" I inquired cautiously. "I'm teachin' young James here the fine art of not pissing on his feet," he explained. "Seems the least his uncle could do for him." I — Diana Gabaldon

Then the image changed to something else. A birthday cake. It was chocolate with a plastic horse in the center, rearing up. Four candles flickered around it.

"He's four," I said, trusting that that was what Eli was trying to tell me. But I knew. I'd seen the dates on the grave.

"He would be six now." She shook her head defiantly. I waited. The child looked up at me expectantly and then looked back at his mother.

"He's still four," I said. "Kids wait."

Her lower lip trembled and she bit into it. She was starting to believe me. That, or she was starting to hate me. Or maybe she already did.

"Wait for what?" Her voice was so soft I barely caught the question.

"Wait for someone to raise them. — Amy Harmon

Everyone within the sound of my voice has the power to increase a child's confidence in himself or herself and to increase a child's faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ through the words they speak. — Rosemary M. Wixom

I had been struggling with how to create a child-like protagonist's voice without making it sound as though I was 'dumbing down' to the character. They are able to see events, people and places with an intensity and open mindedness that adults lack. — An Na

And he married the Echo one fortunate morn,
And Woman, their beautiful daughter, was born!
The daughter of Sunshine and Echo she came
With a voice like a song, with a face like a flame;
With a face like a flame, and a voice like a song,
And happy was Man, but it was not for long!
For weather's a painfully changeable thing,
Not always the child of the Echo would sing;
And the face of the Sun may be hidden with mist,
And his child can be terribly cross if she list.
And unfortunate man had to learn with surprise
That a frown's not peculiar to masculine eyes;
That the sweetest of voices can scold and sneer,
And cannot be answered - like men - with a spear — Andrew Lang

People look at me as sort of a diplomat for Turkey, which by nature, I'm not; I don't want to be. It's again about that playfulness. Being Turkey's voice or representative is not playful, it's not childlike; it makes me self-conscious, kills the child in me. — Orhan Pamuk

What do you call yourself?" the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!
"I wish I knew!" thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, "Nothing, just now."
"Think again," it said: "that won't do."
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. "Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?" she said timidly, "I think that might help a little."
"I'll tell you, if you'll come a little further on," the Fawn said. "I can't remember here."
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. "I'm a Fawn!" it cried out in a voice of delight. "And dear me, you're a human child!" A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed. — Lewis Carroll

Such a number of nights,' said the girl, with a touch of woman's tenderness, which communicated something like sweetness of tone, even to her voice; 'such a number of nights as I've been patient with you, nursing and caring for you, as if you had been a child: and this the first that I've seen you like yourself; you wouldn't have served me as you did just now, if you'd thought of that, would you? Come, come; say you wouldn't. — Charles Dickens

You do know that as a small child, they actually carried me around on a pillow? I had a custom-made helmet that I had to wear until I was four. (Chris)
That's because you banged your head every time you got angry. I was afraid you were going to get brain damage from it. (Wulf)
The brain is fine. It's my ego and social life in the toilet. I shudder at what you're going to do to the kid. (Chris dropped his voice and imitated Wulf's lilting Norse accent.) Don't move, you might get bruised. Oops, a sneeze, better call in specialists from Belgium. Headache? Odin forbid, it might be a tumor. Quick, rush him for a CAT scan. (Chris) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

When I look up from my book, the wind has gained its full voice. This storm is the mad child of Father Time and Mother Nature. Wailing away in no predictable rhythm, their monstrous offspring's throwing a hackle-raising temper tantrum. Underscoring the hideous howl, I detect another, quieter sound, a pitiable, weak whimper which has been all but completely drowned out by the epic volume of the screaming wind. With slowly dawning terror, I realize this cowardly voice is my own; escaping through the narrow opening of my barely parted lips. Where's my dad? Why is he taking so long?
The weather ignores my whining questions and continues to whip itself into a raging convulsion. The windows rattle and the wind screams. But the sounds are no longer random.
In the midst of the chaos, the howling begins to form an elongated word. Horrified, I recognize the stretched out syllables of my own name.
"Aaaaannaaaaabelle. — Alyson Larrabee

I can't hear God's voice for my kids, but I can watch and listen and pray and adjust and try not to screw up whatever He has planned for their lives. And although I can't make them listen to God, or even want to, I can plant enough seeds to swing the world in their favor. That said, as I navigate my day surrounded by the parents of gifted children (did you notice there aren't any average kids anymore - only Gifted and Disposable), here's where I get confused: if a person believes in gifts but not in God, then where - as they stand in daily admiration of their child's emergent uniqueness, their heart swelling with pride and joy and, yes, gratitude - where, then, do they send the thank-you note? — Heather Choate Davis

Ellysetta Baristani is my shei'tani." His eyes found hers. "My truemate." A murmur of voices rippled through the crowd.
"Please tell the court what a truemate is."
"A truemate is the person who holds the other half of a Fey's soul." His gaze never left hers, and Ellie felt the magic of his voice wrapping her in imperceptible weaves of longing. "It is the most sacred bond known to any Fey, more sacred than that between a king and his subjects, more sacred even than that between a mother and a child. — C.L. Wilson

Well, you have now, Sam, dear Sam,' said Frodo, and he lay back in Sam's gentle arms, closing his eyes, like a child at rest when night-fears are driven away by some loved voice or hand. Sam felt that he could sit like that in endless happiness ... — J.R.R. Tolkien

I could scream down 90 mountains
to less than dust
if only one living human had eyes in the head
and heart in the body,
but there is no chance,
my god,
no chance.
rat with rat dog with dog hog with hog,
play the piano drunk
listen to the drunk piano,
realize the myth of mercy
stand still
as even a child's voice snarls
and we have not been fooled,
it was only that we wanted to believe. — Charles Bukowski

To be a Christian is to be loved by God, pursued by God, and found by God. To be a Christian is to realize that in your sin, you were separated from God's presence, and you deserved nothing but God's wrath. Yet despite your darkness and in your deadness, his light shone on you and his voice spoke to you, inviting you to follow him. His majesty captivated your soul and his mercy covered your sin, and by his death he brought you life. Do you know for sure that you are his child, not ultimately because of any good you have done - any prayers you have prayed, steps you have taken, or boxes you have checked - but solely because of the grace he has given? — David Platt

Raphael came through the door like a child's nightmare, his eyes glowing an almost solid silver with wrath, his gleaming fangs fully extended, blood painting his mouth a brilliant red, dripping from his chin to shine wetly against the tattered remains of his black shirt. His huge chest was heaving with the fury of his breath, and his hands curled into claws as his gaze found her and he growled a warning. 'Release her, human.'
'Who are you? the man rasped, fear taking away his breath, coarsening his voice.
'Release her.'
The man tightened his grip, 'Come closer and she dies.'
Rachael's mouth widened in a terrifying smile, 'You think to bargain with me? — D.B. Reynolds

Hello,' he said, his voice and smile pleasant.
'You can't touch me!' I sat up and pulled the covers over myself.
'Yes about that. You need to negate the command.'
'Excuse me?'
He looked at me patiently, like he was explaining something to a stubborn child. 'You need to break that command.'
'And why on earth would I ever want to do that?' I glared at him. Lunatic.
'Because I wasn't finished.'
'Oh, no, I really think that you were.' I held up my wrist. It still bore the scarlet mark of his hand and, to my eyes at least, was bright against the light of the lamp. Then, since I was holding up my hand anyway, I flipped him off.
'You're going to need more.'
'Well, that's easy.' I held up my other hand and flipped him off with that one, too. — Kiersten White

Perhaps one may be out late, and had got separated from one's companions. Oh horrors! Suddenly one starts and trembles as one seems to see a strange-looking being peering from out of the darkness of a hollow tree, while all the while the wind is moaning and rattling and howling through the forest - moaning with a hungry sound as it strips the leaves from the bare boughs, and whirls them into the air. High over the tree-tops, in a widespread, trailing, noisy crew, there fly, with resounding cries, flocks of birds which seem to darken and overlay the very heavens. Then a strange feeling comes over one, until one seems to hear the voice of some one whispering: "Run, run, little child! Do not be out late, for this place will soon have become dreadful! Run, little child! Run!" And at the words terror will possess one's soul, and one will rush and rush until one's breath is spent - until, panting, one has reached home. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Men," said Mr. Kyle, "people have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they'll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don't. I may be wrong, but I call it love - the deepest kind of love."
After these words were spoken, a thoughtful silence settled over the men. The mood was broken by the deep growling voice I had heard back in the washout.
"It's a shame that people all over the world can't have that kind of love in their hearts," he said. "There would be no wars, slaughter, or murder; no greed or selfishness. It would be the kind of world that God wants us to have - a wonderful world. — Wilson Rawls

Then, cutting across it all like a stick through the sand, a child's voice wailed, an acute, high-pitched sound, such as a small animal makes when, out of sheer boredom, you break its leg. — Zadie Smith

And then he heard an answer. A voice said, "Yes?" It was a man's voice, from a big chest and a thick neck, but the syllable was snatched at and the full boom was bitten back short, because of breathy haste and enthusiasm. And anticipation. Like a gulp or a gasp. This guy had caller ID, and he wanted Hackett's news, and he wanted it bad, and he wanted it right then. That was clear. So the celebrations could begin, presumably. Reacher said, "This is not Hackett." The voice paused, and said, "I see." "This is Jack Reacher." No answer. "Hackett got McCann, but he didn't get us. In fact we got him. He was good, but not good enough." The voice said, "Where is Hackett now? — Lee Child

The real danger has always lived in my granddad's kind voice, his soft caresses. All of it masquerading as innocent, but really just a gateway drug for girls starved for affection, desperate for someone to love them. He doesn't force us with a heavy hand. He manipulates with a gentle touch, guides us exactly where he wants us to go. So in the end, we blame only ourselves. — Amy Engel

Always when I play back my father's voice," Maria says, "it is with a professional rasp, it goes as it lays, don't do it the hard way. My father advised me that life itself was a crap game: it was one of two lessons I learned as a child. The other was that overturning a rock was apt to reveal a rattlesnake. As lessons go those two seem to hold up, but not to apply. — Joan Didion

I've got a quiet voice. I think it's because as a child I didn't speak very much. I used to put my fingers in my ears to feel the silence, which was like a lovely trickling motion in my head. — Daniel Tammet

Years ago I sang on a track using that voice and someone asked, 'Who is that terribly depressed man' ... But Patrick loved it. He said, 'You sound like a young boy, like a child, like an old woman, like an old man,' and really, we all have all of those things inside of us. I don't do any vocal gymnastics to make the voice better as I age. If it comes out rougher, then it's true to what's happening. Singing is who I am. I didn't train for it, any more than I trained for anything else I did. I probably should take better care of myself physically, but it goes against the grain. — Lisa Gerrard

I am not a poor child, Lady Eleanor," Madelyne announced, letting her anger sound in her voice.
"Duncan won't marry you. He won't sign the contracts. He'd have to give up his greatest treasure in order to marry you."
"And what be that treasure?" Lady Eleanor inquired, her voice mild.
"Why, I'm Duncan's greatest treasure. He'd be a fool to give me up," she added. "And even you must know that Duncan is anything but a fool. — Julie Garwood

What the hell are you doing up there?'
So he slipped, of course, because he was startled, and because fate, having been so kind to him as to award him this ecstasy, retributively was going to kill him now. He lost his footing and grabbed for the chimney but missed. Head over thighs he rolled out like a child's toy, smashed into the poking branches of the damn pear tree, which probably saved his life, breaking his fall. He landed with a thud on a bed of lettuces, and the wind was knocked out of him, mortifyingly so, through all available orifices.
Oh, brilliant,' said the voice. 'The trees are dropping their fruits early this year. — Gregory Maguire

She came back pinked, sun-dazed and slow moving, with spume-salted hair and a sandy butt, displaying upon a narrow palm, with a child's innocence, a small and perfect white shell, saying in a voice still drugged with sun and heat, "It's like the first perfect thing I ever saw, or the first shell. It's a little white suit of armor with the animal dead and gone. What does it mean when things look so clear and so meaningful? Silly little things." I sat on a low stool, hating the phone. — John D. MacDonald

What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers, and Judge Taylor's voice came from far away, and was tiny. I saw something only a lawyer's child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty. — Harper Lee

Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,
swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing ...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.
And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still
red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where
hanging here from this gallows ... "
That night, the soup tasted of corpses. — Elie Wiesel

I am pitching it feebly," said young Bingo earnestly. "You haven't heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating-machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears I shall be kidded to death by every pal I've got. Bertie," he said, his voice sinking to a hoarse whisper, "you have about as much imagination as a warthog, but surely even you can picture to yourself what Jimmy Bowles and Tuppy Rogers, to name only tow, will say when they see me referred to in print as "half god, half prattling, mischievous child"?"
I jolly well could
"She doesn't say that?"I gasped.
"She certainly does. And when I tell you that I selected that particular quotation because it's about the only one I can stand hearing spoken, you will realise what I'm up against. — P.G. Wodehouse

A child dragging bent useless legs is crawling up the hill outside the village. Nose to the stones, goat dung, and muddy trickles, she pulls herself along like a broken cricket. We falter, ashamed of our strong step, and noticing this, she gazes up, clear-eyed, without resentment - it seems much worse that she is pretty. In Bengal, GS says stiffly, beggars will break their children's knees to achieve this pitiable effect for business purposes: this is his way of expressing his distress. But the child that lies here at our boots is not a beggar; she is merely a child, staring in curiosity at tall, white strangers. I long to give her something - a new life? - yet am afraid to tamper with such dignity. And so I smile as best I can, and say "Namas-te!" "Good morning!" How absurd! And her voice follows as we go away, a small clear smiling voice - "Namas-te!" - a Sanskrit word for greeting and parting that means, "I salute you". — Peter Matthiessen

I knew you'd know," Mom said in a stabilizing, more confident, yet still husky voice. A smile broke across her face in the simple relief of her only remaining child not being shocked by the death of her youngest. She smiled genuinely, perhaps for the first time since cradling Dustin's body as the fire truck alarm blared towards the house in response to her 911 call. Her son had died that morning in her arms as she tried resuscitating him with her own breath, but the first indication of her daughter's reaction was calm. The child raised to expect death met the first moments of the news with seeming serenity. — Darcy Leech

Grigorii spared a single glance in his brother's direction. If looks were daggers, that one would've
sliced straight through the volhv's heart. "Here it comes. 'My oldest son . . .'"
"Is a doctor," Evdokia finished in a singsong voice. "And my daughter is an attorney."
Vasiliy raised his chin. "Jealousy is bad for you. Poisons the heart."
"Aha!" Evdokia slapped the table. "How about your youngest, the musician? How is he doing?"
"Yes, what is Vyacheslav doing lately?" Grigorii asked. "Didn't I see him with a black eye yesterday?
Did he whistle a tree onto himself?"
Oh boy.
Curran opened his mouth. Next to him Jim shook his head. His expression looked suspiciously like
fear.
"He is young," Vasiliy said.
"He is spoiled rotten," Evdokia barked. "He spends all his time trying to kill my cat. One child is a
doctor, the other is an attorney, the third is a serial killer in training. — Ilona Andrews

At another house two women learned very fast; I say women, but one was a girl about twelve or thirteen, already married, however. There was a little child about three years old. My sister asked, 'Who is the True God's Son?' The little thing replied, in a very sweet voice, 'Jesus.' — Lottie Moon

Stop!" She advances on me with the most severe, stern look I've ever seen from her, and she yells in a strong voice. "No more. Get it out of your head, Kai! We are not running. This is happening whether you like it or not. It's time to get your game face on and get ready to kick some ass."
Holy ... I honestly didn't think her capable of this kind of verbal badassery. Even in handcuffs she has taken control, walloped me, and forced my whiney inner child into a corner. — Wendy Higgins

She did not want to be Bilong's mother, or her grandmother. She had done with these roles, with being a good child, a good wife, a good mother. She had put seventy-odd years into it; she had worked hard at it; now she wanted to be that Ofelia who painted and carved and sang in an old cracked voice with strange creatures and their stranger music. The — Elizabeth Moon

The fear that I heard in my father's voice ... when he realized that I really believed I could do, anything a white boy could do, and had every intention of proving it, was not at all like the fear I heard when one of us was ill or had fallen down the stairs or strayed too far from the house. It was another fear, a far that the child, in challenging the white world's assumptions, was putting himself in the path of destruction. — James Baldwin

Each child with special needs such as this does not come into the world in order to make our lives difficult and make us suffer. They each come into this world for a reason and have their secret inner voice. It remains to us to offer our love; to 'bear one another's burdens'; to experience a collective humbling - to realize, that is, that we are not as powerful and important as we think; and to try to lighten that person's burden and understand their language. These children are better at speaking the language of God. — Metropolitan Nikolaos Of Mesogaia

I remember as a child I just would copy everyone else's handwriting, and now I have sort of a version of my sister's handwriting. And I feel like - sometimes I feel that way for my voice. — Cecile McLorin Salvant

Just as you can pick out the voice of a loved one in the tumult of a noisy room, or spot your child's smile in a sea of faces, intimate connection allows recognition in an all-too-often anonymous world. This sense of connection arises from a special kind of discrimination, a search image that comes from a long time spent looking and listening. Intimacy gives us a different way of seeing, when visual acuity is not enough. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Witch's Life
When I was a child
there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch.
All day she peered from her second story
window
from behind the wrinkled curtains
and sometimes she would open the window
and yell: Get out of my life!
She had hair like kelp
and a voice like a boulder.
I think of her sometimes now
and wonder if I am becoming her. — Anne Sexton

By making eye-contact, getting down to your child's level, offering a touch, or using a tone of your voice that conveys a desire to genuinely connect, you disarm yourself. You make it possible to reach your child more deeply and truly move forward together. — Hilary Flower

Silence cleared her throat, fearful her voice would come out a croak. "Is she asleep?"
He blinked as if he, too, were waking from a dream, and glanced down at Mary Darling. "Aye, I'm a-thinkin' she is - she's stopped fussin' at me."
Silence felt a huge smile of relief spread over her face. "She was fussing? Oh, how wonderful!"
He shot her a look, one eyebrow arching. "Ye've taught the child to bully me, too, now?"
"Oh, no," she said hastily, embarrassed. Did he really think she bullied him? What a silly notion! — Elizabeth Hoyt

When children feel understood, their loneliness and hurt diminish. When children are understood, their love for their parent is deepened. A parent's sympathy serves as emotional first aid for bruised feelings. When we genuinely acknowledge a child's plight and voice her disappointment, she often gathers the strength to face reality. — Haim Ginott

When Chaplin found a voice to say what was on his mind, he was like a child of eight writing lyrics for Beethoven's Ninth. — Billy Wilder

Stop feeling useless and worthless. Stop drowning in regret. Stop listening to the persistent voice of your past failures. You were that child once, who Margo would have killed for. Fight for yourselves. You have a right to live, and to live well. You'll inherit flaws; you'll develop new ones. And that's okay. Wear them, own them, use them to survive. Don't kill others; don't kill yourselves. Be bold about your right to be loved. And most importantly, don't be ashamed of where you've come from, or the mistakes you've made. In blindness, love will exhume you. — Tarryn Fisher

Helen, don't."
"I thought it was only a misunderstanding. I thought if I spoke to you directly, everything would be s-sorted out, and - " Another sob choked her. She was so consumed by emotion that she was only vaguely aware of Rhys hovering around her, reaching for her and snatching his hands back.
"No. Don't cry. For God's sake, Helen - "
"I didn't mean to push you away. I didn't know what to do. How can I make you want me again?"
She expected a jeering reply, or perhaps even a pitying one. The last thing she expected was his shaken murmur.
"I do want you, cariad. I want you too damned much."
She blinked at him through a bewildered blur, breathing in mortifying hiccups, like a child. In the next moment, he had hauled her firmly against him.
"Hush, now." His voice dropped to a deeper octave, a brush of dark velvet against her ears. "Hush, bychan, little one, my dove. Nothing is worth your tears."
"You are. — Lisa Kleypas

Wisdom: Mate, we're up to our necks in Skrulls! But we remembered the treaty: mutual protection. Here we are! Now, I've lost a couple of people I care about in quick succession, and I am taking no more bollocks from you. I've got this voice in my head, it's half Gandalf and half Mr. Kipling. Who is that?!
Oberon: A VOICE?! YOU MUST NOT FOLLOW IT! IT'S THE MAD ONE, THE DEMON WHO KILLED HIS OWN CHILD AND LED EVERYONE TO DESTRUCTION! THE HIGHER EVOLUTIONARIES OF ALL THE WORLDS HAVE ONLY JUST SUCCEEDED IN CONFINING HIM TO THE DARK REALMS!
Wisdom: Oh. Right. Him. Well, I'm gonna stop following that voice then. Obviously. — Paul Cornell

Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child's mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the forest. — Benjamin Hoff

When I was a child, Mama had the best voice of all the members of the church. She had loved to sing. Her words had soared like an angel's over the swells of the organ. In fact, I now suspected, her entire theology had been taken from the hymnal. — Siri Mitchell

Kestrel." The general touched her shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically hesitant."It's every child's duty to survive her parents. My profession isn't a safe one. I would like- Kestrel, when I die, do not mourn me."
She smiled. "You do not command me," she said, and kissed his cheek — Marie Rutkoski

No, child," Nona said. "We were victims of the faeries' pride and greed."
"Victims? Sorry, but most of you don't seem very victimish to me. What about hags, and fossegrims, and redcaps, and all the other sharp-toothed nasties" - I looked pointedly at the dragon - "in your group? I don't feel very bad for anything that's spent all those centuries preying on innocent people."
"It makes sense," Arianna said, her voice soft but thoughtful.
"What?"
"When you introduce an alien species into a new environment, it has to adapt or die out. And usually the way it adapts it by preying on the native species. Look at the dodo birds. They were fine until people came to their island with cats and dogs and pigs, then they became prey."
"You do realize you just compared our entire race to dodo birds."
She shrugged. "If they were never meant to be here in the first place, it's not their fault they had to become predators."
"Thank you, Animal Planet. — Kiersten White

Don't give me some stupid lecture about war when the person we're talking about losing is you!" I said, surprised by the savagery in my tone. At least my voice didn't shake.
His face blurred and I tasted salt on my lips. It was warm, warm like Pritkin's hands coming up and framing my face, his thumbs brushing over my eyelids, soft as his fingers in my hair. "One person is not so important in the scheme of things", he said, and his voice was gentle, gentle when it never was, and that almost broke me.
But you are important, I thought. And yet he couldn't see that. In Pritkin's mind, he was an experiment gone wrong, a child cast out, a man valued by his peers only for his ability to kill the things they feared. Just once, I wished he could see what I did.
"Then neither is this", I said, leaning in and pressing my mouth to his, the kiss lightened by desperation and weighted down by everything he meant to me. — Karen Chance