Mime Quotes & Sayings

I had a very artistic bohemian childhood. My father was an actor and a mime. — Vonda Shepard

If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, and it hits a mime, does anyone care? — Gary Larson

Mum's always hinting I should ask him out, but when a girl finds talking as hard as I do and singing in public even harder, that leaves mime and interpretative dance. Don't get me wrong. I'd be great at both those things, but I don't think Dave's all that into the arts. — Cath Crowley

We did not, of course, speak Mandarin, but the question "What the hell do you think you're doing?" has a familiar ring in any language. The mere idea of even attempting to account for ourselves defeated us. We settled instead for explaining, by means of elaborate mime and sign language, that we were barking mad. This worked. He accepted it, but then hung around in the background to watch us anyway. — Douglas Adams

His fingers bent forward at the topmost joint pushing down against the tips of my nails, and his thumb rested lightly against the mole on my index finger. i thought of mosques and churches and prayer mats. Hands clasped together; one hand resting atop the other; fingers interlocked to mime a steeple. What sacred power is invested in hands?
This is not to say I was having pious thoughts. — Kamila Shamsie

(About Pop Idols) Obviously, it's designed by record company executives who want a cheap success, and they don't want to give money to anybody and they don't want to give contracts, so they've created this world of very bubbly teenagers who want to be "idols" and they think all they have to do is mime quite well and they've made it ... But it's not the problem of the kids, it's the problem of the record companies, because it's just an inexpensive way for them to have so-called, I won't say "artists", but erm ... You're nodding, you know what I mean. — Steven Morrissey

Everyone knows there's only one thing less welcome on a stage than a mime, and that's a clown, because everyone knows that clowns eat people. — Laurie Notaro

Coach Henley gave his whistle two short blasts to get the team moving. The Westerly Women ambled over and formed a half circle. The Mothers stamped their feet on the bleachers, trying to build excitement for a game that would unfold with the same painful drama as a mime's funeral. The opposing team hadn't even bothered to warm up. Their shortest player was six feet tall — Karin Slaughter

Was asking what the difference was between mime and pantomime and no one would say. — Garrison Keillor

Despite rumors to the contrary, a mime is actually a very satisfying thing to waste. — Lev L. Spiro

Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts. — Steven Wright

I really loved animals when I was little - my friend and I had an imaginary vet's office; we would mime doing surgery on animals. We treated more injuries than illnesses - fixing with a baby bear with a broken leg, removing a tumor. Of course, our surgeries would take about five seconds; that's how good we were. — Hannah Murray

I worked with a mime coach. I did weapons training. I did weight training. — Kristanna Loken

When I was 11 I became a massive fan of The Monkees. We had a so-called 'band' of kids on my street and we'd go along to people's houses and mime to Monkees records. — Gary Numan

I used to do puppet theatre and also mime and musical theatre in Florida for competitions and festivals, which was great. I was very much involved in theatre when I was in college. — Wesley Snipes

It was said that [Vetinari] would tolerate absolutely anything apart from anything that threatened the city* ... [Footnote] And mime artists. It was a strange aversion, but there you are. Anyone in baggy trousers and a white face who tried to ply their art anywhere within Ankh's crumbling walls would very quickly find themselves in a a scorpion pit, on one wall of which was painted the advice: Learn The Words. — Terry Pratchett

This is what we, in the con business, call making a spectacle of ourselves. Let's try to avoid that from now on."
"Except [ ... ] Mr. No-Sex-in-the-Bathrooms is going to describe two probably drunk people who staggered in. Plus, he thinks I'm a prostitute. We can double down on that by ... " She stopped him, glancing back into the store throught the big plate-glass windows. Ian looked, too, and sure enough, the clerk was still watching them warily.
"Perfect, she said, and the made what was, absolutely, the international two-handed gesture for sexual intercourse. She then added a couple of exaggerated hip thrusts, saying, "I want to make this absolutely clear, because this guy's kind of an idiot." She then rubbed her fingers together, after which she held out her hand, palm up, as if to say Pay me.
Ian cracked up. "That's actually kind of scary. Sex with a mime. Do I have to pay extra to make sure you don't do the trapped-in-a-box thing while we're doing it? — Suzanne Brockmann

I learned mime back when I was in college, at Ball State University, Indiana. That woke up my body from the neck down and made me realize that acting and communication - portraying a story, event, or emotion - is a full-body experience. — Doug Jones

I opened my mouth, but I just couldn't find the words to express the mishmash of frustration and plain old mad I had spinning through my head. I moved my lips. I narrowed my eyes. I made angry hand gestures. But no words came out. I started to pace, gnawing my fingernails to the quick. Fortunately, they grew back almost instantly, which meant I had an endless supply.
Andrea stopped me in my tracks by grabbing my shoulders. OK, sweetheart, I'm all for nonverbal forms of communication, but you're starting to look like an extremely pissed-off mime. Use your words. — Molly Harper

(From the story The Last Days of a Famous Mime)
He said nothing. He was mildly annoyed at her presumption: that he had not thought this many, many times before.
With perfect misunderstanding she interpreted his passivity as disdain.
Wishing to hurt him, she slapped his face.
Wishing to hurt her, he smiled brilliantly. — Peter Carey

You know you're about as forthcoming as a mime. — Shirley Jump

Our lifelines will meet only when the aether sees fit. That may not be often. It can never to always. — Samantha Shannon

Errata

Baby, give me just
one more hiss

We must lake it fast
morever

I want to cold you
in my harms

& never get lo

I live you so much
it perts!

Baby, jive me gust
one more bliss

Whisper your
neat nothings in my near

Can we hock each other
one tore mime?

All light wrong?

Baby give me just
one more briss

My won & homely

You wake me meek
in the needs

Mill you larry me?

Baby, hive me just
one more guess

With this sing
I'll thee shed — Kevin Young

Love is a jeering mime. — Kenneth Rand

Sometimes I wish I hadn't said something foolish. It is then that I realize the power of mime. — Bob Saget

I guess it would fall into the stalker category more or less. I was being stalked by a mime - silent but maybe deadly. Somehow, this mime would appear on the set of Bringing Out the Dead and start doing strange things. I have no idea how it got past security. Finally, the producers took some action and I haven't seen the mime since. But it was definitely unsettling. — Nicolas Cage

A mime is a terrible thing to waste. — Marcel Marceau

Reathing secondhand smoke, being subject to unfair dairy pricing, and not being able to mime (or lap dance), though they are all tragic, tragic injustices, are not quite as bad as the systematic segregation of public transportation based on skin color. And while fighting for your right to lap dance and mime and breathe just regular pollution is a very fine, very American idea, it is not quite as brave as being middle-aged black woman in Alabama in 1955 telling a white man she's not giving him her seat despite the fact that the law requires her to do so. — Sarah Vowell

I spotted Dray standing to one side of the room and made my way to him. A mime accosted me along the way, but I did my best Russian-accented English and said, "In my country, we shoot mimes on the spot." The poor guy blanched beneath his white make up and backed away. — Kate Evangelista

When Beethoven went deaf, the mynah bird just used to mime. — Graham Chapman

Danny was a matador. Other cast members included a chubby Italian chef, a mime, and, for some reason, a mummy. I found that offensive on behalf of living Egyptian people, but I also knew that Parker McHune's mother couldn't sew, so wrapping her son in Ace bandages was the best she could do. — Molly Harper

Chaplin made me laugh and cry without saying a word. I had an instinct. I was touched by the soul of Chaplin - Mime is not an imitator but a creator. — Marcel Marceau

I started off at the Second City in Chicago ... It's an improvisational theater that ostensibly does social and political satire, but when I was there, we generally didn't. We did character work, and we did just the silliest things we could think of. We weren't all that concerned with, you know, changing the world through mime. — Stephen Colbert

If a tree falls in the forest and it hits a mime, would he make a noise? — Brad Warner

The mime must first of all be aware of this boundless contact with things. There is no insulating layer of air between the man and the outside world. Any man who moves causes ripples in the ambient word in the same way a fish does when it moves in the water. — Keith Johnstone

It's rare that a story begins at the beginning. In the grand scheme of things, I really turned up at the beginning of the end of this one. After all, the story of the Rephaim and Scion started almost two hundred years before I was born - and human lives, to Rephaim, are as fleeting as a single heartbeat.
Some revolutions change the world in a day. Others take decades or centuries or more, and others still never come to fruition. Mine began with a moment and a choice. Mine began with the blooming of a flower in a secret city on the border between worlds.
You'll have to wait and see how it ends.
Welcome back to Scion. — Samantha Shannon

Weather you scream or mime , im going going to those lips with cream. — Albert Malete

Dance and fall.
Like a puppet. All those years of dancing. — Samantha Shannon

I always loved to dance and move. I probably should have been a mime or something like that. — Robin Wright

If a police officer arrests a mime, does he need to tell him he has the right to remain silent. — Jess Walter

I like that this is your idea of formal dress, by the way. The same clothes as always, but recently laundered. Do you even know what level of swank La Vache is?" "I wasn't aware that swank operates on a tiered system," I said, pulling my luxuriously warm jeans back on. "They want a star pilot; I'm giving them what they expect. If you were hiring a mime artist, you wouldn't expect them to show up in business casual, would you." He — Yahtzee Croshaw

When I went to get my master's in creative writing at San Francisco State after Grinnell, I joined the moribund remnants of the Actor's Workshop, until I saw Kay Hayward and Sandy Archer in the San Francisco Mime Troupe and drove down that day to audition. The rest is history. — Peter Coyote

My voice went recently, never happened before, off like a tap. I had to sit in silence for nine days, chalkboard around my neck. Like an old-school mime. Like a kid in the naughty corner. Like a Victorian mute. — Adele

A magician makes the visible invisible. A mime makes the invisible visible. — Marcel Marceau

Mime, like music, knows neither borders nor nationalities, — Marcel Marceau

That's our cue to depart."
"They know something " I pointed out.
"I know something too. I know we're going to attract a lot of unwanted attention if they keep screaming. And then we have to make up some ridiculous explanation about how we heard screaming through the vents in our rooms and we followed the sound back to the basement and we found these girls lying on the ground and pretending to be tied up by invisible rope because they're practicing for the regional mime championships."
I blinked at her. "Is that explanation more or less believable than we woke up because two girls who are actually evil magicians tripped a magical alarm wired to a door in the basement we aren't supposed to know about "
Scout paused for a minute then nodded. "Point made. — Chloe Neill

Writing didn't carry the same risks as speaking. You couldn't be shouted down or stared at. The page was both a proxy and a shield. — Samantha Shannon

Everybody uses mime and gesture in real life, though we don't realize it. It's very useful as a performance technique, though it can be boring to watch on its own. — Anthony Daniels

They burn down Satanist churches, perform exorcisms on politicians, and they once crucified a street mime. Upside down. And then they set fire to him. A lot of people applauded. — Simon R. Green

I don't profess to have music as my big wheel and there are a number of other things as important to me apart from music. Theatre and mime, for instance. — David Bowie

I flunked out of mime school. I could never hear what the instructor was saying!!! — Neil Leckman

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer? — Steven Wright

The Musicians Union declared you couldn't mime on Top Of The Pops, which is obviously impossible, if you've got a studio-based record that you'd worked on for a year or something. And there were a lot of terrible performances. Because on Top Of The Pops, you were just thrown onstage. — David Toop

But here I was,quasi-boyfriend saying he wanted to take me on an actual date, and I was just staring at him impassively, like a horse watching a mime pretending to walk against the wind. — Maureen Johnson

The song is gone; the dance
is secret with the dancers in the earth,
the ritual useless, and the tribal story
lost in an alien tale.
Only the grass stands up
to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums
posture and mime a past corroboree,
murmur a broken chant.
The hunter is gone; the spear
is splintered underground; the painted bodies
a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.
The nomad feet are still.
Only the rider's heart
halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word
that fastens in the blood of the ancient curse,
the fear as old as Cain. — Judith A. Wright

The art of Mime encompasses all the feelings of the soul. The Dance, on the other hand, is essentially an expression of joy, a desire to follow the rhythms of the music. — August Bournonville

Never get a mime talking. He won't stop. — Marcel Marceau

In my opinion, animation is best when it communicates without words, because it is the perfect medium through which to make shortcuts to meaning. When actors are not talking, just acting out, it looks kind of weird. But in animation, mime is constant, and you accept it. — Signe Baumane

To me, acting is acting ... I'd be happy working on a street corner in a mime troupe. — Kelly McGillis

New Rule: The sad mime at every protest has to give it a rest. One sign you're a major annoyance: when you haven't said anything and I still want to tell you to shut the fuck up. — Bill Maher

I was fired ignominiously from the Junior School Choir for being so off tune that the choir mistress declared she couldn't even bear to have me mime. — Sara Sheridan

All existence for a man turned away from the eternal is but a vast mime under the mask of the absurd. Creation is the great mime ... it is itself an absurd phenomenon. — Albert Camus

Life is a cycle, and mime is particularly suitable for showing fluidity, transformation, metamorphosis. Words can keep people apart; mime can be a bridge between them. — Marcel Marceau

For a deaf man, the world is a zoo of mime artists — A.A. Bell

In a costume, you need very exaggerated body language - as you say, sort of mime-type skills. — Warwick Davis

What sculptors do is represent the essence of gesture. What is important in mime is attitude. — Marcel Marceau

Physical expression was my first language: Before I was an actor, I was a dancer, an acrobat, a mime and a street performer. — Denis Lavant

Nothing?Micheal!You're 'playing'!.IN PUBLIC? 'That's new?' Claire whisperd to shhane 'He hasn't played anywhere but our living room since-Teeth-in-neck mime 'You know Oliver' 'Oh.' micheal's face was turning pink.'just put it back,OK?It's no big deal! Eve kissed him. — Rachel Caine

This being 1962, no one thought it odd to have a mime program on radio. — Mark Lewisohn

I have known a handful of producers who actually were equal or superior to the writers with whom they worked. These producers were a new kind of nonwriting writer hatched by the movies - as Australia produced wingless birds. They wrote without pencils or even words. Using a sort of mime-like talent, they could make up things like writers. — Ben Hecht

My dad was a mime and then he had his company and created plays for children and was very successful with it. — Marion Cotillard

I was a mime. I'm not kidding. I went to Northwestern University and they have a mime company, so we did a lot of training and then a lot of mime shows around Chicago. — Kerry Bishe

If you shoot a Mime, do you need to use a silencer? — Steven Wright

I have to mime at parties when everyone sings Happy Birthday ... Mime or mumble and rumble and growl and grunt so deep that only moles, manta rays and mushrooms can hear me. — Stephen Fry

I could have become a mime or a juggler, but I became a singer-songwriter instead. — Vonda Shepard

At Columbus Circle, a juggler wearing a trench cloak and top hat, who is usually at this location afternoons and who calls himself Stretch Man, performs in front of a small, uninterested crowd; though I smell prey, and he seems worthy of my wrath, I move on in search of a less dorky target. Though if he'd been a mime, odds are he'd already be dead. — Bret Easton Ellis

Let's put our weapons down, okay?" He raises his hands to show he's unarmed. His hands are big enough to encircle my ankles. I swallow.

To hide my awkwardness, I mime taking a gun out of my pocket and toss it aside. He reaches into an imaginary shoulder holsters and takes out a gun, putting it on his planner. I unsheathe an invisible knife from my thigh.

"All of them." I indicate under the desk. He reaches down to his ankle and pretends to take a handgun out of an ankle holster.

"That's better." I sink into my chair and close my eyes.

"You're deeply weird, Shortcake." His voice is not unkind. I force my eyes open and the Staring Game almost kills me. His eyes are the blue of a peacock's chest. Everything is changing. — Sally Thorne

Now, I had been frightened on several different occasions in my life. The most frightening of these involved an elevator and a mime. — Brandon Sanderson

I don't understand why people take pictures of mimes. Everyone looks like a mime in a picture. — Karl Pilkington

Some revolutions change the world in a day. Others take decades or centuries or more, and others still never come to fruition. Mine began with a moment and a choice. — Samantha Shannon

Pedantry. The delight in living. Brio. The chance to act, to mime, to mock, to mimic. — Alexander Theroux

I don't know why I'm second-guessing Crevan's sanity - I'm sitting here talking to a hedgehog mime. — T. Kingfisher

Ethan Figman, thick bodied, unusually ugly, his features appearing a little bit flattened, as if pressed against a mime's invisible glass wall, sat with his mouth slack and a record album in his lap. — Meg Wolitzer

I used to be a narrator for bad mimes. — Steven Wright

Isn't it wonderful, how words and paper can embroil us so? We are witnessing a miracle, dear heart. — Samantha Shannon

I studied and performed and even taught mime years ago. — Tom Bergeron

Love is communicating. I'm sorry, mime, but I only lust you. — Jarod Kintz

I made my performance debut in New York City downtown on the Lower East Side in college doing awkward performance art as a go-go dancer at Lady Starlight's Party. And I never thought that my love for mediocre performance art and bad mime would ever come to use in my career as an actor. But my fantasies came true and I got to play Maureen in Rent. — Annaleigh Ashford

Change a word or two, even a single letter, and you change the entire story. — Samantha Shannon