Clink Quotes & Sayings

More and more the world resembles an entomologist's dream. The earth is moving out of its orbit, the axis has shifted; from the north the snow blows down in huge knife-blue drifts. A new ice age is setting in, the transverse sutures are closing up and everywhere throughout the corn belt the fetal world is dying, turning to dead mastoid. Inch by inch the deltas are drying out and the river beds are smooth as glass. A new day is dawning, a metallurgical day, when the earth shall clink with showers of bright yellow ore. As the thermometer drops, the form of the world grows blurred; osmosis there still is, and here and there articulation, but at the periphery the veins are all varicose, at the periphery the light waves bend and the sun bleeds like a broken rectum. — Henry Miller

He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round us, and often stopping - even stopping his jaws - to listen. Some real or fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly, - — Charles Dickens

The only true failure is the failure of not trying. — Tony Clink

Carl just needed to hear the clink of glasses, the glug of a drink being poured. I picked up the phone, shaking a tumbler of ice near the receiver so Carl could imagine his gin. — Gillian Flynn

[M]y Coke hit the floor with a metallic clink, so much like the sound of a bullet casing being dropped. — Mira Grant

People, as curious primates, dote on concrete objects that can be seen and fondled. God dwells among the details, not in the realm of pure generality. We must tackle and grasp the larger, encompassing themes of our universe, but we make our best approach through small curiosities that rivet our attention - all those pretty pebbles on the shoreline of knowledge. For the ocean of truth washes over the pebbles with every wave, and they rattle and clink with the most wondrous din. — Stephen Jay Gould

I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest. — Graham Greene

How gracious those dews of solace that over my senses fall At the clink of the ice in the pitcher the boy brings up the hall. — Eugene Field

I saw the mountain, impassible, cavernous, secret, where from morning to night I'd hear nothing but the wind, the curlews, the clink like distant silver of the stone-cutters' hammers. — Samuel Beckett

He took a couple of steps. "I clink," he said. "It's undignified."
"Everybody clinks. It's what soldiers do. — K.J. Parker

Glasses clink together and I can feel the sexual tension bottled in the room from all the way out here. These are the kinds of places I avoid at all cost, because I can't breathe very well in them. — Jessica Sorensen

Every week, when I change the sheets, I look at the half of the bed that has not been slept in, as pristine as the day the sheets were changed, and I wonder what happened to the possibilities of my youth. No one has ever slept in that bed but me, and I have only slept on one side of it. In the same chaste, deathlike position every night. All those years. All those years that have passed, in the utter silence of that apartment - silent except for the clink of a knife against a fork, the shutting of a cabinet door, the opening of an envelope. — Robert Goolrick

astern receding land of brothers dimming lights mountain if I turn water roughening he falls I fall on my knees crawl forward clink of chains perhaps it's not me perhaps it's another perhaps it's another voyage confusion with another what isle what moon you say the thing you see the thoughts sometimes that go with it it disappears the voice goes on a few words it can stop it can go on depending on what it's not known it's not said — Samuel Beckett

She watched as a beer truck lumbered by with a clink of quivering warm, wet promises. — William Peter Blatty

He cocks his head to the side as if listening. "There. Did you hear it?"
"What?"
"The clink of coins as I just earned a few thousand more."
I roll my eyes. — J. Kenner

Standing in this glittering room with the music in the background and the press and hum of scores of people, the clink of glasses, the faint smells of warmth, champagne, stiff material and sometimes of flowers and perfume, — Anne Perry

I clink my glass against hers and we drink without toasting. The aged cognac tastes like history. Not the kind taught in schools, full of wars and politics and cultural revolution - the smaller, softer history of a world with only two people in it. — Isaac Marion

At these times, the things that troubled her seemed far away and unimportant: all that mattered was the hum of the bees and the chirp of birdsong, the way the sun gleamed on the edge of a blue wildflower, the distant bleat and clink of grazing goats. — Alison Croggon

No man saw the building of the New Jerusalem, the workmen crowded together, the unfinished walls and unpaved streets; no man heard the clink of trowel and pickaxe; it descended out of heaven from God. — John Robert Seeley

You think me cruel."
"No." Magiano hesitates for a long moment. "Maybe a little."
"I'm not branding them because I am cruel," I say calmly. "I'm doing it as a reminder of what they've done to us. To the marked. You're so quick to forget."
"I never forget," Magiano replies. This time, there is a slight sharpness to his tone. His hand hovers near his side, where his childhood wound continues to plague him. "But branding the unmarked with your crest will not make them any more loyal to you."
"It makes them fear me."
"Fear works best with some love," Magiano says. "Show them that you can be terrifying, yet generous." The gold bands in his braids clink. "Let the people love you a little, mi Adelinetta. — Marie Lu

Syn watched the Partini closely as the alien lunged for him. He caught the alien's wrist before the knife could make contact with his skin. The Partini tried to pull loose, but Syn held fast with one hand. "Tell me," he asked snidely, "what smells like shit and screams like a girl?" He shot the Partini in the knee. The Partini screamed like a woman meeting her long-lost best friend as he crumpled to the street, his poisoned knife falling on the concrete with a metallic clink. Syn kicked the knife into the darkness, out of the assassin's reach. "That's right. You." The — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Imagine a delicious glass of summer iced tea.
Take a long cool sip. Listen to the ice crackle and clink.
Is the glass part full or part empty?
Take another sip.
And now? — Vera Nazarian

If you're going to have guests," the ghost said with a sigh, "would it be so hard to give me a little advance warning?" Her eyes were dark with heavy lids. She had soft cheekbones and gentle features, framed neatly by twin locks of hair, which swept her cheeks on either side. The rest was tucked behind her ears and spilled down her back and shoulders in silvery waves, like a mercurial waterfall. She had a slim, spritely figure, and her movements were as smooth as smoke in a soft breeze. She placed the cup on the tray with a gentle clink, and drifted to a seat on the windowsill. Through her opaque figure, I could see the swaying branches of a weeping willow in the yard. "How — William Ritter

Current among men, Like coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

In the street, he turned west and walked against a tide of blank-eyed, gum-chewing faces. A taxi went over a manhole cover, clink-clank. Steam was rising from an excavation at the corner. The world was like a puzzle with half the pieces missing. What was the pont of all these drab buildings, this dirty sky? — Damon Knight

The shape stood outside the master bedroom door for some little time, not moving. Then it came inside. Louis's face was buried in his pillow. White hands reached out, and there was a click as the black doctor's bag by the bed was opened. A low clink and shift as the things inside were moved. The hands explored, pushing aside drugs and ampules and syringes with no interest at all. Now they found something and held it up. In the first dim light there was a gleam of silver.

The shadowy thing left the room. — Stephen King

With a sigh she reached into her pocket and drew out a small velvet bag, which upended on the table. Two gold rings fell out, landing with a soft clink. Simon looked at them puzzled. You want to get married? — Cassandra Clare

What are we toasting?" I ask, slightly bemused. "Reward for employer of the year?"

It's a dumb joke, and I almost groan at my own crappy attempt at humour. Our glasses clink and Hue just sighs.

"My only reward will be the sweet embrace of death — Ruby Nox

Look into the face of a man who will kill you for a belief and your nostrils will snuff up the scent of abomination. Hear a speech declaring a holy war and, I assure you, your ears should catch the clink of evil's scales and the dragging of its monstrous tail over the purity of the language. — Terry Pratchett

If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well, but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses — John Ruskin

Lev was a clink in my armor, a crack in my wall, — Belle Aurora

The whole area, manor house, Clink, all eighteen brothels and the handsome profits therefrom, belonged to and was ruled by the bishop. — Edward Rutherfurd

It was brief. Last year, I think. She's a social climber. No wonder she has her sights set on Christian." "Christian is taken. I told her to leave him alone or I would fire her." Kate gapes at me once more, stunned. I nod proudly, and she lifts her glass to salute me, impressed and beaming. "Mrs. Anastasia Grey! Way to go!" We clink. — E.L. James

There is a recurrent scene from those dinners that surfaces again and again, like an obsessive undercurrent in a dream. Julian, at the head of the long table, rises to his feet and lifts his wineglass. 'Live forever,' he says.

And the rest of us rise too, and clink our glasses across the table, like an army regiment crossing sabres: Henry and Bunny, Charles and Francis, Camilla and I. 'Live forever,' we chorus, throwing our glasses back in unison.

And always, always, that same toast. Live forever. — Donna Tartt

Maybe truth is just like that. You can see it, but only out of the corner of your eye.
Adele never demands of him any actual conversation. She seems to understand that she is there to keep time and drown out the alarm of more individuated noises. The clink of a pin drop that can fray his nerves, the grinding of gravel beneath the weight of a man on the street, the spike of a dulled conversation as a couple pass beneath his window over Langegasse, the mounting pitch of the conspiratorial exchange as they approach. — Janna Levin

Almondine
Eventually, she understood the house was keeping a secret from her.
All that winter and all through the spring Almondine had known something was going to happen, but no matter where she looked she couldn't find it. Sometimes, when she entered a room, there was the feeling that the thing that was going to happen had just been there, and she would stop and pant and peer around while the feeling seeped away as mysteriously as it had arrived. Weeks might pass without a sign, and then a night would come, when, lying nose to tail beneath the window in the kitchen corner, listening to the murmur of conversation and the slosh and clink of dishes being washed, she felt it in the house again and she whisked her tail in long, pensive strokes across the baseboards and silently collected her feet beneath her and waited. When half an hour passed and nothing appeared, she groaned and sighed and rolled onto her back and waited to see if it was somewhere in her sleep. — David Wroblewski

I was six years old, watching my pregnant mother wash the dishes. Cutlery clinked, filling the air with sparkling bursts of colour.
'Do it again!' I begged her, bouncing in my seat.
My mother glanced back at me. 'Do what?'
'Make the stars.'
'Stars?'
It never occurred to me that she couldn't' see what I was seeing. 'The gold ones', I said.
'I don't know what you're talking about.' she replied, and with a child's impatience, I hopped down from my stool to show her.
'Like this,' I said, taking two spoons and clanging them together. Each clink produced another starburst expanding luminous through the air between us.
'You mean,' said my mother slowly, 'the sound makes you think of the stars?'
'No, it makes the stars.. — R. J. Anderson

Lou was last, and she stopped next to Jo long enough to pluck her cigarette holder out of her mouth.
"You meet the nicest people in the clink, Jo. I should have figured something was up. Were you planning to hit the road with him in your fancy frock after the party?"
"Oh, I don't think he'd look very good in my fancy frock," said Jo, and moved to catch up with the rest. — Genevieve Valentine

You meet somebody at the seashore on a vacation and have a wonderful time together. Or in a corner at a party, while the glasses clink and somebody beats on a piano, you talk with a stranger whose mind seems to whet and sharpen your own and with whom a wonderful new vista of ideas is spied. Or you share some intense or painful experience with somebody, and discover a deep communion. Then afterward you are sure that when you meet again, the gay companion will give you the old gaiety, the brilliant stranger will stir your mind from its torpor, the sympathetic friend will solace you with the old communion of spirit. But something happens, or almost always happens, to the gaiety, the brilliance, the communion. You remember the individual words from the old language you spoke together , but you have forgotten the grammar. You remember the steps of the dance, but the music isn't playing any more. So there you are. — Robert Penn Warren

The low thrum of Dom's voice sent her pulse into a dance. Devil take him! She'd just seen him last night; his mere voice shouldn't make her swoon, for pity's sake. It shouldn't make her remember the soft words he'd whispered as he'd caressed her and kissed her and swept her into madness ...
What was wrong with her? She wasn't letting that man sweep her anywhere, not as long as he only wanted to sweep her out of his way.
Now if only she could be sure why.
She strained to listen. For a while, the gentlemen were too intent on eating to say much of interest. But once the clink of silver ended and the clink of glasses began, their tongues loosened.
Thank heaven for brandy. She could smell it all the way over here. — Sabrina Jeffries

Father Pierre, why did you stay on in this colonial Campari-land, where the clink of glasses mingles with the murmur of a million mosquitoes, where waterfalls and whiskey wash away the worries of a world-weary whicker, where gin and tonics jingle in a gyroscopic jubilee of something beginning with J? — Graham Chapman

Gansey took a drink of his healing tea. Maura's chin jutted as she observed the lump of it heading down his throat. His face remained precisely the same and he said absolutely nothing, but after a moment, he made a gentle fist of his hand and thumped his breastbone. "What did you say that was good for?" he asked politely. His voice was a little odd until he cleared his throat. "General wellness," Maura said. "Also, it's supposed to manage dreams." "My dreams?" he asked. Maura raised a very knowing eyebrow. "Who else's would you be managing?" "Mm." "Also, it helps with legal matters." Gansey had been swallowing as much of his fancy coffee as he could possibly manage without breathing, but he stopped and put the bottle on the table with a clink. "Do I need help with legal matters?" Maura shrugged. "Ask a psychic. — Maggie Stiefvater

When the liquor's out, why clink the cannikin? — Robert Browning

In the parking lot of a Safeway on Oahu," he says. And he's telling the truth;
in the background she can hear the shopping carts performing their clashy, anal
copulations.
"I'm kind of busy now, Whitey -- but what can I do for you?"
"It's Y.T., " she says, "and you can help bust me out of The Clink." She gives
him the details.
"How long ago did he put you there?"
"Ten minutes."
"Okay, the three-ring binder for Clink franchises states that the manager is
supposed to check on the detainee half an hour after admission."
"How do you know this stuff?" she says accusingly.
"Use your imagination. As soon as the manager pulls his halfhour check, wait
for another five minutes, and then make your move. I'll try to give you a hand.
Okay?"
"Got it. — Neal Stephenson

To clink glasses of a freshly made, seasonal beer, preferably in a pub or garden, with friends and perhaps new acquaintances, is a ritual that makes every participant feel good. We may not rationalize this at the time, but it gives us a sense of place in our common community and our time in the tides of life on earth. This is a way to value beer and treat it with respect. — Michael Jackson

And sometimes both of them forgot that what they were undergoing amid the clink of cutlery and crockery was a mutual interview that might decide whether or not they would own a common set of those items some time in the whimsical future. — Vikram Seth

For an instant he felt nettled at the irony, the lightest shadow of a snub, with which she had met his decisiveness, and at the way he had risen to her quick glance. But it was only an infinitesimal clink of foils and as the bowing maitre d'hotel led them through the crowded room, it was forgotten as Bond in her wake watched the heads of the diners turn to look at her. — Ian Fleming

It was Sunday, and Mumma had gone next door with Lena and the little ones. Under the pepper tree in the yard Pa was sorting, counting, the empty bottles he would sell back: the bottles going clink clink as Pa stuck them in the sack. The fowls were fluffing in the dust and sun: that crook-neck white pullet Mumma said she would hit on the head if only she had the courage to; but she hadn't. — Patrick White

This is what you remember about him: not much, but then you have been assiduous in your forgetting. His red sweater, v-neck, cashmere; the clink of ice-cubes in a glass. He is shadow and voice, but you cannot recall his face. He is behind a closed door, in a forbidden room. He is asleep in his armchair, he is asleep in the driveway, asleep in your sandpit, face down, snoring but not harmless, even then. He is shouting, he is whispering, he is close but also remote as if at the end of a long hallway and you cannot hear him. His words never make any sense, he speaks some other language. His hands sometimes spin away from him like windmills, like pinwheels and Catherine wheels, snapping like firecrackers. There must be pain, but you cannot feel it.
Your skin bruises like apples. — Melanie Finn