Muffled Sound Quotes & Sayings

There was nothing ... and nothing ... and then the car bumped up again. There was a muffled pop, the sound of a small pumpkin exploding in a microwave oven.
Morris cut the wheel to the left and there was another bump as the Biscayne went back into the parking area. He looked in the mirror and saw that Curtis's head was gone. — Stephen King

The leaves did not stir on the trees, cicadas twanged, and the monotonous muffled sound of the sea that rose from below spoke of the peace, the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it rumbled below when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it rumbles now, and it will rumble as indifferently and as hollowly when we are no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies, perhaps a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing advance of life upon earth, of unceasing movement towards perfection. Sitting beside a young woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, Gurov, soothed and spellbound by these magical surroundings - the sea, the mountains, the clouds, the wide sky - thought how everything is really beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget the higher aims of life and our own human dignity. — Anton Chekhov

The trees change their voices in autumn as well as their shapes. No longer do they whisper to one another in muffled tones as they did in summer; they talk in a different leaf-language now. The wind moves through the boughs like fingers drawn across the strings of a harp filling the air with the harsh dry sound of sapless leaves. It is the main theme of the autumn music, this murmuring counterpoint of dead leaves. — Patience Strong

Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women. — Betty Friedan

Everything had become song. The curve of the road beneath the clouds here, and there the strokes of dark earth, the green and the gray, the torn pink of clay and gravel under fingertips. The consonance was above all that of the muffled shadow and grass to the depths of sky, where a flutter of cheerful feathers quivered.

In these dreams there are also black walnut trees, and then a forest that opens in a breeze. Nothing. Nothing more than the obstinate sound of wind. — Deborah Heissler

SKIRTING the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)
Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,
The rushing amorous contact high in space together,
The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,
Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, 5
In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,
Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull,
A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,
Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,
She hers, he his, pursuing. — Walt Whitman

Would it really be better, he wanted to ask, if it were always this nice? Would anyone bother to notice? Or would they simply pass through a night like this, unmoved?
And (this was more to the point) if life were without flaws and no one ever changed or died, what role would God have?
A muffled sound of voices reached him. Above, the stars glittered so large and bright, he thought he might throw a net and pull them towards him like whiting. Boats slid past him in the inky dark but failed to enter his thoughts. — Meg Rosoff

V frowned. There was only a hissing sound coming from the voice mail. But then a clatter had him yanking the phone away from his ear.
Now Butch's voice, hard, loud: "Dematerialize. Dematerialize now."
A scared male: "But-but-"
"Now! For fuck's sake, get your ass out of here ... " Sounds of muffled flapping.
"Why are you doing this? You're just a human-"
"I am so sick of hearing that. Leave!"
There was a metallic shifting, a gun being reloaded.
Butch's voice: "Oh,shit ... "
Then all hell broke loose. Gunshots, grunts, thuds.
V leaped up from his desk so fast he knocked his chair over. — J.R. Ward

He walked over the arched stone bridge, enjoying the silence of the village. Snow did that. It laid down a simple, clean duvet that muffled all sound and kept everything beneath alive. Farmers and gardeners in Quebec wished for two things in winter: lots of snow and continuous cold. An early thaw was a disaster. It tricked the young
and vulnerable into exposing themselves, only to be nipped in the root. A killing frost. — Louise Penny

It was Eric's voice not Simon's, on the recorded message. "Ladies, ladies " he said. Though it was the millionth time she'd heard the recording, Clary couldn't help rolling her eyes. "If you've reached this message that means our boy Simon is out partying. But please don't fight among yourselves. There's always enough Simon to go around." There was a muffled yell, some laughter, and then the long sound of the beep. — Cassandra Clare

Crying. Milo was crying. It was a soft, muffled sound, but Jason's ears were quite powerful and the house was otherwise quiet. It sounded something like sobs and something like a dog's throat-whine. Aw. Hell. — Eli Easton

No breath, no sound, except at times the muffled cracking of stones being reduced to sand and cold, came to disturb the solitude that surrounded Janine. After a moment, however, it seemed to her that a king of slow gyration was sweeping the sky above her. In the depths of the dry, cold night thousands of stars were formed unceasingly and their sparkling icicles, no sooner detached, began to slip imperceptibly towards the horizon. Janine could not tear herself away from the contemplation of these shifting fires. She turned with them, and the same stationary progression reunited her little by little with her deepest being, where cold and desire now collided. Before her, the stars were falling one by one, then extinguishing themselves in the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living and dying. — Albert Camus

It was closer to the sound a heavy snowfall makes, a muffled hush that almost makes less noise than no noise at all. Felurian — Patrick Rothfuss

Being unfaithful to yourself is not as hard as you'd think. I will never compromise myself for someone else, I always thought. I'll kill myself first. But it's so easy. It's like wearing earplugs. It's as if you've put your head under the pillow during a thunderstorm, so that all you can hear is the faint sound of muffled rain. — Katie Crouch

Now here is an oddity. A question for the zombie philosophers. What does it mean that my past is a fog but my present is brilliant, bursting with sound and color? Since I became Dead I've recorded new memories with the fidelity of an old cassette deck, faint and muffled and ultimately forgettable. But I can recall every hour of the last few days in vivid detail, and the thought of losing a single one horrifies me. Where am I getting this focus? This clarity? I can trace a solid line from the moment I met Julie all the way to now, lying next to her in this sepulchral bedroom, and despite the millions of past moments I've lost or tossed away like highway trash, I know with a lockjawed certainty I'll remember this one for the rest of my life. — Isaac Marion

Behind me, Ingrid made a sort of muffled snorting sound. I can only assume she was choking on a breath mint. I shot her a look, hoping she hadn't heard anything, and saw she was wearing a poker face, which could only mean she'd heard everything. — Daniel O'Malley

Once their breathing calmed and the ringing in Zane's ears faded,he heard the muffled sound of Nick and Kelly in their bedroom,catcalling and applauding.Ty must have heard it as well,because they both began to laugh at the same time.
-Is wrong that I'm turned on by the idea of forcing your friends to listen to us having sex?-Zane asked with a frown.
Ty laughed harder.-Just don't tell Nick that.He'll offer to critique your performance.Or worse,join us- — Abigail Roux

Alan Campbell opened one eye.
From somewhere in remote distances, muffled beyond sight or sound, his soul crawled back painfully, through subterranean corridors, up into his body again. Toward the last it moved to a cacophony of hammers and lights.
Then he was awake.
The first eye was bad enough. But, when he opened his second eye, such as rush of anguish flowed through his brain that he hastily closed them again. — John Dickson Carr

I peeled off my right sleeve, trying not to irritate the wound any more than necessary. My hands were trembling, either from fear or adrenaline, and just bending my arm made me want to scream. I bit my lips together to keep the sound in, but even with that my muffled whimpers escaped into the night. — Kiera Cass

My name was in the wind, and the wind was high above the snowbound city. There was no difference between the sound of my name and the sound of the wind. I was in the wind and the wind was in me, and beneath us were the crystalline haloes of golden light wrapped about the streetlamps, and the muffled plops of snow falling from eaves, and the dry rattles of the dead leaves clinging to the indifferent boughs. — Rick Yancey

Do you want to be put under first?" she asked Lewis as they sat down.
"Huh?" he replied in confusion.
Something like a cough came out of Vlad that jerked her head up. Vampires didn't need to cough. Was that a muffled laugh?
"You know." Kira's eyes flashed green at Lewis, and her fangs seemed to jump out of her gums. "Get bespelled so you don't remember this."
Lewis appeared even more confused. "If that's what you want."
I will not as for pointers from Dracula, she swore to herself. I will not. "Yeah, I'd feel better about that. So, ah ... look into my eyes."
Another strangled sound came from Vlad's direction. Now Kira was sure it was a laugh. She was determined to ignore him.
Lewis obediently stared at her, and Kira tried to make her voice sound confident. "You don't feel anything. You're not afraid."
"I am," came Vlad's immediate reply. "If you tell him wolves are the children of the night next, I might hurt myself laughing. — Jeaniene Frost

There was a muffled pop, the sound of a small pumpkin exploding in a microwave oven.
Morris cut the wheel to the left and there was another bump as the Biscayne went back into the parking area. He looked in the mirror and saw that Curtis's head was gone.
Well, no. Not exactly. It was there, but all spread out. Mooshed. No loss of talent in that mess. Morrie thought. — Stephen King

The first mile was always the hardest. By the second, the world grew fuzzy at the edges and only the muffled sound of feet on the trail and the blood pumping in my ears filtered through the haze. — Christina Lauren

In other words, all of my books are lies. They are simply maps of a territory, shadows of a reality, gray symbols dragging their bellies across the dead page, suffocated signs full of muffled sound and faded glory, signifying absolutely nothing. And it is the nothing, the Mystery, the Emptiness alone that needs to be realized: not known but felt, not thought but breathed, not an object but an atmosphere, not a lesson but a life. — Ken Wilber

water lapped softly against the side of the marina walkway, the sound of muffled conversations and kids laughing occasionally floated by, the heat of the sun warmed skin while the breeze off the water kept the temperature pleasant, and a time-traveling vampire pirate was dragging a sensual, yet innocent, — Juliet Spenser

It closed with a muffled thump that whispered money into the silent interior. The sound of my car door closing was vaguely reminiscent of a nickel hitting the bottom of a tuna can - cheap and tinny. — M. Leighton

Eventually I fall asleep, savoring the melancholy pleasures of victory. I wake with a start to a muffled sound: the wolves could not wait for us to withdraw; they are already devouring the bodies. — Shan Sa

There is a sound to waiting. It sounds like held breath pounding its fists against the walls of the lung, damp and muffled beats. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

The backs of their heads were hollowed out; their faces were nothing but thin masks at the front. Within each hollow a candle was burning. This was so plain to him now, that he wondered he had never noticed it before. He imagined what would happen if he went down into the street and blew some of the candles out. It made him laugh to think of it. He laughed so much that he could no longer stand. His laughter echoed round and round the house. Some small remaining shred of reason warned him that he ought not to let the landlord and his family know what he was doing so he went to bed and muffled the sound of his laughter in the pillows, kicking his legs from time to time with the sheer hilarity of the idea. — Susanna Clarke

They left us for dead, didn't they? We told them this would happen. We came all this way to try and save them. You'd think they'd have the decency to let us out when they saw we were right."

"Probably think we're behind it. We're lucky they didn't just kill us."

"Not sure that's lucky. A nice, quick decapitation is kind of appealing right now."

"How long do you think before the Ba Ran find us?" Royce asked.

"You in a hurry?"

"Yeah, actually. If I have to be eaten, I would sort of like to get it over with."

Hadrian heard the sound of breaking glass.

"Ah, well, that didn't take long, did it?" Royce muttered miserably.

Footsteps shuffled in the outer room. There was a pause, and then the steps started again, coming closer. There were sounds of a struggle and a muffled cry. Hadrian braced himself and watched the door as it opened. What stood in the doorway shocked him.

"You boys ready to go? — Michael J. Sullivan

I was just beginning to relax when the radio crackled to life, and nearly gave me a heart attack.
"I see something, I see something!" Maddy was screaming and sounded terrified. "I see something moving!"
There was a weird, muffled sound, and then Skylar's voice came on. "Please disregard that emergency broadcast. Madeline has just seen her first cow. — V.L. Dreyer

Except for the muffled strum of her fingers against metal, the house is still, quiet, but then she hears another sound, this one coming from deep within. a numbing furrow slides through her soul, sliding into her brain, a furrow that seperates one part of her heart from the other. and then it goes quiet agani. — Mary E. Pearson

At Oreanda they sat on a beach not far from the church, looked down at the sea, and were silent. Yalta was barely visible through the morning mist; white clouds rested motionlessly on the mountaintops. The leaves did not stir on the trees, cicadas twanged, and the monotonous muffled sound of the sea that rose from below spoke of the peace, the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it rumbled below when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it rumbles now, and it will rumble as indifferently and as hollowly when we are no more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing advance of life upon earth, of unceasing movement towards perfection. — Anton Chekhov

And if that weren't bad enough, the next sound he heard was a loud click.
The damned woman had locked him out. She'd taken all the food and locked him out.
"You'll pay for this!" he yelled at the door.
"Do be quiet," came the muffled reply. "I'm eating. — Julia Quinn

I learned two important things about the sound I was searching for: that it had to be indirect, refracted or muffled in some way; and that the sound had to give the impression that it would continue forever- the sound of someone practicing piano heard faintly from an unknown direction, or the sound of gentle rain outside a window, punctuated by drops falling on the casement. — Ryu Murakami

Everyone was eating, talking softly, glancing at me, hugging me, eating. It was as if someone had turned the volume down. Everything looked normal, but the sound was muted. Death did this, set all this weirdness in motion, made people appear out of nowhere carrying casseroles, saying 'I'm sorry' over and over, death muffled their voices. — Joan Abelove

Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. — Siegfried Sassoon

Talk - half-talk, phrases that had no need to be finished, abstractions, Chinese bells played on with cotton-tipped sticks, mock orange blossoms painted on porcelain. The muffled, close, half-talk of soft-fleshed women. The men she had embraced, and the women, all washing against the resonance of my memory. Sound within sound, scene within scene, woman within woman - like acid revealing an invisible script. One woman within another eternally, in a far-reaching procession, shattering my mind into fragments, into quarter tones which no orchestral baton can ever make whole again. — Anais Nin

BUDGE (muffled)
No,no,nono.
NURSE BAKER
I understand what you're trying to say.
BUDGE
A hideous scream.
NURSE BAKER
Exactly.
BUDGE
A cry of desperation.
NURSE BAKER
Perfect.
BUDGE
A strangled sob. A plea torn from my throat. What sound can I make to convince you I'm not the one you want? A disconsolate sigh? Maybe that's what you want to hear. The smallest human moan imaginable. A whisper in a corner of an unlit room, with curtains blowing in the wind.
NURSE BAKER
What could be more touching? — Don DeLillo