Patter Quotes & Sayings

Most people imagine the canonical dripping faucet as relentlessly periodic, but it is not necessarily so, as a moment of experimentation reveals. "It's a simple example of a system that goes from predictable behavior to unpredictable behavior, "Shaw said. "If you turn it up a little bit, you can see a regime where the pitter-patter is irregular. As it turns out, it's not a predictable pattern beyond a short time. So even something as simple as a faucet can generate a pattern that is eternally creative. — James Gleick

Friends come in all sizes, take it from me! Golly gee, size doesn't matter, when you want some friendly patter from a pal who is true. — Robin Williams

When the leaves rustle, they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver suddenly, and fall, and scatter away along the ground, they might be the patter of a woman's hurrying footsteps, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled shoe. — Daphne Du Maurier

I longed for the pitter-patter of little feet, so I got a dog. It's cheaper, and you get more feet. — Garrison Keillor

For those of you in the cheap seats I'd like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry! — John Lennon

I am still working on patter and presentation. — Paul Daniels

It rained today. You sat with me. We listened to the pit-patter, felt the cold breeze and got drenched in countless emotions. We didn't say a word to each other.
Today, 'words' were mute spectators of our growing love. — Saru Singhal

Darkness. The door into the neighboring room is not quite shut. A strip of light stretches through the crack in the door across the ceiling. People are walking about by lamplight. Something has happened. The strip moves faster and faster and the dark walls move further and further apart, into infinity. This room is London and there are thousands of doors. The lamps dart about and the strips dart across the ceiling. And perhaps it is all delirium ...
Something had happened. The black sky above London burst into fragments: white triangles, squares and lines - the silent geometric delirium of searchlights. The blinded elephant buses rushed somewhere headlong with their lights extinguished. The distinct patter along the asphalt of belated couples, like a feverish pulse, died away. Everywhere doors slammed and lights were put out. And the city lay deserted, hollow, geometric, swept clean by a sudden plague: silent domes, pyramids, circles, arches, towers, battlements. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Last night I heard a robin singing in the rain,
And the raindrop's patter made a sweet refrain,
Making all the sweeter the music of the strain.
So, I thought, when trouble comes, as trouble will,
Why should I stop singing? Just beyond the hill
It may be that sunshine floods the green world still.
He who faces the trouble with a heart of cheer
Makes the burden lighter. If there falls a tear,
Sweeter is the cadence in the song we hear.
I have learned your lesson, bird with dappled wing,
Listening to your music with its lilt of spring
When the storm-cloud darkens, then's the TIME to sing. — Eben E. Rexford

We've begun to long for the pitter-patter of little feet - so we bought a dog. Well, it's cheaper, and you get more feet. — Rita Rudner

Why won't they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, can't they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping - rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year's and Easter and Christmas - But, goodness, why need they do it? — John Dos Passos

The rain landed on my skin with a barely audible patter and changed the tempo of its repetitive dance, letting the wind change its course and angle. The cold soon seeped through my dress and into my bones. An iris from my garland fell in my lap. — Erica Sehyun Song

Hello kerplunk, this is my dear friend pitter patter. — Chris Vonada

I love the sound of it," Trina whispers, as if speaking too loudly might interrupt the drumming patter of the rain outside. "It makes me want to sleep. Snuggle my head right up in your armpit and snore for three days."
"My armpit?" Mark repeats. "Good thing we all showered up in the storm this morning. My pits smell like roses. Go ahead and get comfy. — James Dashner

Ah, the patter of little feet around the house. There's nothing like having a midget for a butler. — W.C. Fields

That corner in the drive, too, where the trees encroach upon ... the gravel, is not a place in which to pause, not after the sun has set. When the leaves rustle, they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver suddenly, and fall, and scatter away along the ground, they might be the patter, patter, of a woman's hurrying footstep, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled satin shoe. — Daphne Du Maurier

Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Cinders patter, falling with the snow. We creep infinitesimally northward through the dirty chaos of a world in the process of making itself.
Praise then Creation unfinished! — Ursula K. Le Guin

He had the right mix of pissed-off male and swoon-worthy alpha to make any girl's heart go pitter-patter. — Chelle Bliss

It is good to be the pitter-patter of snow, no? To be an unexpected moment in time. — Meia Geddes

We live in a world in which people are censured, demoted, imprisoned, beheaded, simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips, and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Tough shit. That's the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence. — Daniel M. Gilbert

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells,
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes,
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall,
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds. — Wilfred Owen

If only I could step back into the time of old movies, if only I could be given the opportunity to do what Katharine Hepburn did or what Rosalind Russell did. Those kinds of characters, that kind of patter, that kind of language, that kind of script. They don't exist any more. — Kari Matchett

And the drops of rain. They are delicate, at first, their splashes graceful against pavement. Soon, though, the soft patter grows into a furious storm. — Ky Grabowski

Nor had I any illusions about Algernon Charles Swinburne, who often used to stop my perambulator when he met it on Nurses' Walk, at the edge of Wimbledon Common, and pat me on the head and kiss me: he was an inveterate pram-stopper and patter and kisser. — Robert Graves

The patter of their feet as they walk through Jim Crow barriers to attend school is the thunder of the marching men of Joshua, and the world rocks beneath their tread. — Paul Robeson

Isaac looked for a grand patter to the Universe. He spent long periods lost in thought. Then suddenly he dashed off several pages without pausing. — John Hudson Tiner

The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter. — Dashiell Hammett

There they sit, with everyone thinking no more of them than they might of a pretty odd lot of cabbages, yet half the time they're pattering and clattering away at one another. Why? What is it they patter about? That's what I want to know.' I — John Wyndham

I do hope your Christmas has had a little touch of Eternity in among the rush and pitter patter and all. It always seems such a mixing of this world and the next - but that after all is the idea! — Evelyn Underhill

This whole illusion has its history in ways of thinking - in the images, models, myths, and language systems which we have used for thousands of years to make sense of the world. These have had an effect on our perceptions which seems to be strictly hypnotic. It is largely by talking that a hypnotist produces illusions and strange behavioral changes in his subjects - talking coupled with relaxed fixation of the subject's conscious attention. The stage magician, too, performs most of his illusions by patter and misdirection of attention. Hypnotic illusions can be vividly sensuous and real to the subject, even after he has come out of the so-called "hypnotic trance." It is, then, as if the human race had hypnotized or talked itself into the hoax of egocentricity. There is no one to blame but ourselves. — Alan W. Watts

Our house was always filled with dogs ... They helped make our house a kennel, it is true, but the constant patter of their filthy paws and the dreadful results of their brainless activities have warmed me throughout the years. — Helen Hayes

The impulsive part of me wants to trust Alec. The patter is familiar enough. It's how I ended up a married woman at just twenty-two. With a few smooth words, David had me melting at his feet in a pile of swooning goo. Look how far that's gotten me - a marriage leaking love faster than helium escaping a hole from a balloon. — Olivia Luck

She thought it funny how the poor environment had been raped just fine until there was a sufficient excess of the people who had effected the raping to produce sufficient numbers of themselves who were sufficiently idle that they might begin to protest the raping of the environment, which was irretrievably lost to the raping by that point.
And this would be the great soothing cathedral music, the stopping of the chainsaws amid the patter of acid rain, that all good citizens would listen to for the quarter-century it took them all to wire up to cyberspace and forget about the lost hopeless run-over gang-ridden land, reproducing madly still all the while, inside their bunkers listening to NPR. — Padgett Powell

I'm sure there's going to be some material from This Is Not Going To Be Pretty. I usually use that song to just introduce myself to the audience, although the patter in between the song is always different. — Harvey Fierstein

The witch's weapon is fear. She aims to put as much into your heart as she can before she takes it. Either that or she'll simply turn you to stone. If that sounds preferable to death, it is not. The skin hardens to rock. The blood stops flowing. The living flesh is petrified, but the mind is not." The dull patter of rain was the only sound in the cavernous Armory. None of the girls moved. Most stared at the discarded weapons strewn across the floor. "The witch uses fear, but so do we. And there's nothing she fears more than love." She continued her slow patrol, locking eyes with whichever cadet was in front of her. "She has no answer for it. That is the magic of a Princess of the Shield. That is how you defeat a witch. Whoever scares the other in the core of her heart first, wins. That's the game. — M.A. Larson

Waiting for a book to be published is like having a baby. It would be nine months before we heard the patter of tiny pages trotting through the letter box, and the bookcase shuffled it's shelves in boredom and I was a martyr to morning sickness. — Deric Longden

When we got back home, Gramps dropped me off and enveloped me in a hug. Normally, he was a handshaker, maybe a back-patter on really special occasions. His hug was strong and tight, and I knew it was his way of telling me that he'd had a wonderful time.
"Me, too, Gramps," I whispered. — Gayle Forman

All at once she could hear the sullen patter of the rain and sense the sigh of the wind behind it. She remembered the sound, because it had rained like that the day Mom was buried, the day they lowered her into that little rectangle of darkness. — Robert Bloch

I stared back at her, my eyes leveled with hers in inscrutable certainty. For a moment, our eyes remained engaged, unflinching and impenetrable, as the shrill, steady call of a siren ran across the street outside, mixing with the effervescent glow of traffic lights and a steady pitter-patter of pedestrian feet sauntering across the street in wakeful gait. — Gina Marinello-Sweeney

Poetry is cathartic only for the unserious, for in front of the rush of expressive need stands the barrier of form, and when the hurdler's scissored legs and outstretched arms carry him over the bars, the limp in his life, the headache in his heart, the emptiness he's full of, are as absent as his street-shoes, which will pinch and scrape his feet in all the old leathery ways once the race is over and he has to walk through the front door of his future like a brushman with some feckless patter and a chintzy plastic prize. — William H Gass

(Eve)"Hold on. You have to give them a gift for moving?"
"Uh-huh. Plus they're shacking, so it should be a couple thing." She (Mavis) ate another canape, fed on to Leonardo.
"Why does there have to be a gift for every damn thing?" Eve complained.
"Retail conspiracy." Roarke patter her knee.
"I bet it is," Eve said darkly. "I just bet it is. — J.D. Robb

The scatterbrain,
is a little like,
the patter of rain.
Neither here,
nor there,
but everywhere. — Lang Leav

Now the noisy winds are still; April's coming up the hill! All the spring is in her train, Led by shining ranks of rain; Pit, pat, patter, clatter, Sudden sun and clatter patter! ... All things ready with a will, April's coming up the hill! — Mary Mapes Dodge

How's the blood-stream, my dear, invaluable little woman? How's the blood-stream?" ...
"It's quite comfortable, sir ... I think, sir, thank you." ...
"Aha!" ... "a comfortable stream, is it? Aha! v-e-r-y good. V-e-r-y good. Dawdling 'twixt hill and hill, no doubt. Meandering through groves of bone, threading the tissues and giving what sustenance it can to your dear old body ... I am so glad. But in yourself - right deep down in yourself - how do you feel? Carnally speaking, are you at peace - from the dear grey hairs of your head to the patter of your little feet - are you at peace?"
"What does he mean, dear?" said poor Mrs. Slagg, clutching Fuschia's arm ...
"He wants to know if you feel well or not. — Mervyn Peake

Loving passionately, loving fiercely, loving and taking both good and bad, and at times, the damn near impossible, provides sweet chaos, fueling the pitter patter of the heart... — Virginia Alison

If you don't get a laugh I immediately think it's somebody else's fault. You can always blame the material. But when it's just yourself and songs that you've picked up because you love them and stories that you've written yourself and patter you think is really funny if that tanks, there's no one to blame it on. God knows, I try! — Jason Graae

I was struck again by the deep quiet of the countryside, the absence of any human sounds; my mind still expected the clamor of cars, voices, all the clatter of nonstop human movement. Here was only the hushed patter of the drizzle, the call of birds in faraway trees. The air was impossibly sweet, like wine. A crow called from somewhere, its voice dark and throaty. — Simone St. James

This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter,
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter,
matter, matter, matter, matter, matter,
matter, matter, matter, matter, matter! — W.S. Gilbert

And you'll feel sorry for yourself forever because of it, will you," she said. "A fine figure you are. It's not enough you have a warm house and a man to black your boots. You've food in your belly and a fire to warm your toes. You have clothes and clothes and clothes; you keep your own carriage, ye daft fool! There's folks who would fall on their knees in thanks to have any of those things, and all you can patter on about is people talking about you and a limp that cuts your fine stride. You can't even take a bit of sympathy, but keep to your gloom about it." She flipped one hand at him in disgust. "You're naught but a spoiled lad. — Caroline Linden

Sometimes I wonder what my interior actually is. A heart that goes pitter-patter and thoughts that glide by like little paper boats on flowing water, — Orhan Pamuk

There's a patter in these Commandments of setting things apart so that their holiness will be perceived. Every day is holy, but the Sabbath is set apart so that the holiness of time can be experienced. Every human being is worthy of honor, but the conscious discipline of honor is learned from this setting apart of the mother and father, who usually labor and are heavy laden, and may be cranky or stingy or ignorant or overbearing. Believe me, I know this can be a hard Commandment to keep. But I believe also that the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always the sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object. — Marilynne Robinson

It was some time before I could summon resolution to go down through the trees and bushes upon the flank of the headland to the beach. At last I did it at a run; and as I emerged from the thicket upon the sand, I heard some other body come crashing after me. At that I completely lost my head with fear, and began running along the sand. Forthwith there came the swift patter of soft feet in pursuit. I gave a wild cry, and redoubled my pace. Some dim, black things about three or four times the size of rabbits went running or hopping up from the beach towards the bushes as I passed. — H.G.Wells

And at the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney on Sixty Minutes, have you ever wondered why we say fiddle-faddle and not faddle- fiddle? Why is it ping-pong and pitter-patter rather than pong-ping and patter-pitter? Why dribs and drabs, rather than vice versa? Why can't a kitchen be span and spic? Whence riff-raff, mish-mash, flim-flam, chit-chat, tit for tat, knick-knack, zig-zag, sing-song, ding-dong, King Kong, criss-cross, shilly-shally, see-saw, hee-haw, flip-flop, hippity-hop, tick-tock, tic-tac-toe, eeny-meeny-miney-moe, bric-a-brac, clickety-clack, hickory-dickory-dock, kit and kaboodle, and bibbity-bobbity-boo? The answer is that the vowels for which the tongue is high and in the front always come before the vowels for which the tongue is low and in the back. — Steven Pinker

The patter of tentative footfalls reached my ears. I flipped on my side to face the door and saw Ansel wander by. I rolled onto my back, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I'd crashed on my bed as soons as I'd gotten back from school, collapsing under the weight of the day.
The floorboards squeaked as Ansel passed by my door again. I caught his nervous glance in my direction before he hurried down the hall.
'Ansel, I'm not the sun; stop orbiting and get in here,' I called. — Andrea Cremer

In the pre-war era when itinerant home-remedy salesmen still wandered the country, they had a traditional patter for selling a potion that was supposed to be particularly effective in treating burns and cuts. A toad with four legs in front and six behind would be placed in a box with mirrors lining the four walls. The toad, amazed at its own appearance from every angle, would break into an oily sweat. This sweat would be collected and simmered for 3,721 days while being stirred with a willow branch. The result was the marvelous potion.
When writing about myself, I feel something like that toad in the box. — Akira Kurosawa

The mist after rain, uninterrupted rainfall on rooftops, pitter-patter intellect. The thoughts I leave behind like footsteps. — Chris Campanioni

A gush of bird song, a patter of dew
A cloud and a rainbow's warning;
Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue
An April day in the morning! — Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford

There is a glorious pattern for every man's life, an individual, perfect patter. No two people are alike ... No two leaves are alike-no two snowstorms-no two sets of fingerprints. No two lives are alike, yet each life holds a divine pattern of unfoldment, a great and holy destiny, rich in achievement and honor. As you live true to the pattern of yourself, that deep, inner self, you will unfold as perfect, as joyous, as naturally beautiful as the tree will reach its full measure of fulfillment. — Annalee Skarin

The sun is rising through a yellow, howling wind. Time for breakfast. Inside the trailer now, broiling bacon and frying eggs with good appetite, I hear the sand patter like rain against the metal walls and brush across the windowpanes. A fine silt accumulates beneath the door and on the window ledge. The trailer shakes in a sudden gust. All one to me
sandstorm or sunshine I am content, so long as I have something to eat, good health, the earth to take my stand on, and light behind the eyes to see by. — Edward Abbey

Most photographers have some kind of verbal patter going on when they shoot: "Great. Turn to me. Big smile. Less shark eyes. Have fun with it. Not like that." Some photographers are compulsively effusive. "Beautiful. Amazing. Gorgeous! Ugh, so gorgeous!" they yell at shutter speed. If you are anything less than insane, you will realize this is not sincere. It's hard to take because it's more positive feedback than you've received in your entire life thrown at you in fifteen seconds. It would be like going jogging while someone rode next to you in a slow-moving car, yelling, "Yes! You are Carl Lewis! You're breaking a world record right now. Amazing! You are fast. You're going very fast, yes! — Tina Fey

I don't think I was considered to be a cabaret singer because I didn't have patter that was written. — Rita Coolidge

March, rain at the windows, and he had to be up at five the next morning. He listened to the click and patter of drops against the panes. — Anthony Doerr

The rough pitter-patter of rain against the tin roof caused me to stir in my sleep, but I struggled to fight it. I yearned to remain under the warmth of my thick quilt, wandering aimlessly through the dream world. But, alas, I knew reality would ease its way in and pull me out. — K.A. Poe

Nobody is one block of harmony. We are all afraid of something, or feel limited in something. We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked to each other, not just pitter patter but real talk. We shouldn't be afraid, because most people really like this contact; that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable too. It's so much easier to be together when we drop our masks. — Liv Ullmann

You realize we can't go back to Sheridan."

"I know."

"Have to keep heading southwest now, and I don't know anything about the area. We'll probably get lost or walk into a road and a patrol."

"Well"-Hadrian looked down at Royce's side-"you're bleeding again, and I think I am, too, so the good news is we'll likely die before morning. Still, I suppose it could be worse."

"How?"

"They could have caught us at the tavern, or we could have drowned in that river."

"Either way we'd be dead. At this point I'm inclined to see that as better off."

"Anything can always be worse," Hadrian assured him.

They lay staring up at the sky and watching clouds blot out the stars. Royce heard it before he felt it. A distant patter on the blades of grass along the hillside. He turned once more to Hadrian. "I'm really starting to hate you. — Michael J. Sullivan

I am a Hindu because of sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets, because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival to God, because of the whine of the reedy nadaswaram and the beating of drums, because of the patter of bare feet against stone floors down dark corridors pierced by shafts of sunlight, because of the fragrance of incense, because of flames of arati lamps circling in the darkness, because of bhajans being sweetly sung, because of elephants standing around to bless, because of colourful murals telling colourful stories, because of foreheads carrying, variously signified, the same word - faith. — Yann Martel

Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm. — Jean Paul

It's apparent that we can't proceed any further without a name for this institutionalized garrulousness, this psychological patter, this need to catalogue the ego's condition. Let's call it psychobabble, this spirit which now tyrannizes conversation in the seventies. — Richard Rosen

Seeing a patter doesn't mean you know how to put it all together. Take baby steps: don't focus on the folks whose skills are far beyond your own. When you're new to something-or you haven't tried it in a while-it can feel impossibly hard to get it right. Every misstep feels like a reason to quit. You envy everyone else who seems to know what they're doing. What keeps you going? The belief that one day you'll also be like that: Elegant. Capable. Confident. Experienced. And you can be. All you need now is enthusiasm. A little bravery. And-always-a sense of humor. — Kate Jacobs

Are they given in exchange for the glory of an African sunrise, for the twilight breeze whispering through the palms, for the green shade of the matted, tangled vines, for the cool, big-starred nights of the desert, for the patter of the waterfall after a hard day's hunt? What, I ask you, are they given in exchange for THESE? Why, a bare cage with iron bars; an ugly piece of dead meat thrust in to them once a day; and a crowd of fools to come and stare at them with open mouths! - No, Stubbins. Lions and tigers, the Big Hunters, should never, never be seen in zoos. — Hugh Lofting

The speech fascinated him. His ear caught the rhythm of it and he noted their idioms and worked some of them into his patter. He had found the reason behind the peculiar, drawling language of the old carny hands - it was a composite of all the sprawling regions of the country. A language which sounded Southern to Southerners, Western to Westerners. It was the talk of the soil and its drawl covered the agility of the brains that poured it out. It was a soothing, illiterate, earthy language. — William Lindsay Gresham

What's wrong?" His voice was loud, so sharp that he sounded angry.
I knew I should be careful, keep the secret, but I was too far gone to talk around it. My chest was working in huge spasms and I could barely breathe. "I kissed her."
"And then you went into anaphylactic shock?"
I closed my eyes and let the rain patter against my face through the open window "She has her tongue pierced. — Brenna Yovanoff

An age-old patter that seemed like chaos but was not ... — Dean Koontz

Without any wind blowing, the sheer weight of a raindrop, shining in parasitic luxury on a cordate leaf, caused its tip to dip, and what looked like a globule of quicksilver performed a sudden glissando down the centre vein, and then, having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent. Tip, leaf, dip, relief - the instant it all took to happen seemed to me not so much a fraction of time as a fissure in it, a missed heartbeat, which was refunded at once by a patter of rhymes: I say 'patter' intentionally, for when a gust of wind did come, the trees would briskly start to drip all together in as crude an imitation of the recent downpour as the stanza I was already muttering resembled the shock of wonder I had experienced when for a moment heart and leaf had been one. — Vladimir Nabokov

One moment it was a calculating machine, attempting dispassionately to keep up with the gouts of data. And then awash in those gouts, something metal twitched and a patter of valves sounded that had not been instructed by those numbers. A loop of data was self-generated by the analytical engine. The processor reflected on its creation in a hiss of high-pressure steam. One moment it was a calculating machine. The next, it thought. — China Mieville

On this simple unit-system [of building blocks] ruled on the low table-top all these forms were combined by the child into imaginative patter. Design was recreation! ... The virtue of all this lay in the awakening of the childmind to rhythmic structure in Nature - giving the child a sense of innate cause-and-effect otherwise far beyond child-comprehension. — Frank Lloyd Wright

Still, the idea continued to drum through her, like the constant patter of the rain: that no one would ever love her. — Lauren Oliver

Arthur and Bram stood on Bridge Street, just across from the
Jews' Burial Ground. Though it was quite dark, they could still
make out a few of the tallest headstones, chipped and ragged,
illuminated by the lights of the workhouse behind them. They
heard the groans of drunks from somewhere beyond, and from the
large road they heard the faint pitter-patter of prostitutes' feet
along the dirt. Arthur had not planned this return to the East End,
to be sure. But now that he was here, and had been venturing here
for the past two days, he realized that of course there was nowhere
else for this matter to properly end. — Graham Moore

Capablanca used to talk calmly and moderately about everything. However, when our conversation turned to the problems of the battle for the world championship, in front of me was a quite different person: an enraged lion, although with the fervour typical only of a southerner, with his temperamental patter, which made it hard to follow the torrent of his indignant exclamations and words. — Alexander Koblencs

I heard the pitter patter of little old feet. — Lawrence Block

Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation. — Calvin Coolidge

Goodnight, child. This is a damn shame. Let's drop it out of the picture." He gave her two lines of hospital patter to go to sleep on. "So many people are going to love you and it might be nice to meet your first love all intact, emotionally too. That's an old-fashioned idea, isn't it? — F Scott Fitzgerald

I was twenty-one at the time, about to turn twenty-two. No prospect of graduating soon, and yet no reason to quit school. Caught in the most curiously depressing circumstances. For months I'd been stuck, unable to take one step in any new direction. The world kept moving on; I alone was at a standstill. In the autumn, everything took on a desolate cast, the colors swiftly fading before my eyes. The sunlight, the smell of the grass, the faintest patter of rain, everything got on my nerves. — Haruki Murakami

I was proceeding slowly one afternoon through torrents of rain and kept seeing that red ghost swimming and shivering with lust in my mirror, when presently the deluge dwindled to a patter, and then was suspended altogether. — Vladimir Nabokov

How are you sacred to me? your lines are golden threads - your patter, my patten - I explore the liturgy of your words ... — John Geddes

O Moon that rid'st the night to wake
Before the dawn is pale,
The hamadryad in the brake,
The Satyr in the vale,
Caught in thy net of shadows
What dreams hast thou to show?
Who treads the silent meadows
To worship thee below?
The patter of the rain is hushed,
The wind's wild dance is done,
Cloud-mountains ruby-red were flushed
About the setting sun:
And now beneath thy argent beam
The wildwood standeth still,
Some spirit of an ancient dream
Breathes from the silent hill.

Witch-Goddess Moon, thy spell invokes
The Ancient Ones of night,
Once more the old stone altar smokes,
The fire is glimmering bright.
Scattered and few thy children be,
Yet gather we unknown
To dance the old round merrily
About the time-worn stone.
We ask no Heaven, we fear no Hell,
Nor mourn our outcast lot,
Treading the mazes of a spell
By priests and men forgot. — Gerald Gardner

Spittle flew from Jango's lips as he shouted at the man in a woman's voice that sounded like it was made of cyanide and sugar that had been laced with the patter of blood dripping on an abattoir floor, This is the truth about The Killer, ain't it baby? You're just a big ol' bag of screams under all that big, bad muscle, ain't you? — Cedric Nye

The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a patter of systems. — Bruce Lee

Patterns are prostitution to the patter of parents. — Luke Rhinehart

The faint metallic smell of the falling snow surrounds her. calm yourself. Listen. Cars splash along streets, and snowmelt drums through runnels; she can hear snowflakes tick and patter through the trees. She can smell the cedars in the Jarin des Plantes a quarter mile away. Here the Metro hurdles beneath the sidewalk; that's the Quai Saint-Bernard. Here the sky opens up, and she hears the clacking of branches: that's the narrow stripe of gardens behind the Gallery of Paleontology. This, she realizes, must be the corner of the quay and rue Cuvier. '
Six blocks, forty buildings, ten tiny trees in a square. This street intersects this street intersects this street. One centimeter at a time.
Her father stirs the keys in his packets. Ahead loom the tall, grand houses that flanked the gardens, reflecting sound.
She says, we go left — Anthony Doerr

There's something wonderfully exciting about the quiet sing song of an aeroplane overhead with all the guns in creation lighting out at it, and searchlights feeling their way across the sky like antennae, and the earth shaking snort of the bombs and the whimper of shrapnel pieces when they come down to patter on the roof. — John Dos Passos

Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationship to man etc. Then he becomes a slave to the patter and takes the pattern to be the real thing. — Bruce Lee

We're branded. You and me. We are so in love, Charlie. You feeling it yet? Do I make your hear go pitter patter? — Colleen Hoover

And you're too nice," he added, above the lap-lap of the water and the patter of sand on the water-lily leaves. "I was relying on you being too jealous to let that demon near the place. — Diana Wynne Jones

Nimander wondered if he had discovered the face of the one true god. Naught else but time, this ever changing and yet changeless tyrant against whom no creature could win. Before whom even trees, stone and air must one day bow. There would be a last dawn, a last sunset, each kneeling in final surrender. Yes, time was indeed god, playing the same games with lowly insects as it did with mountains and the fools who would carve fastnesses into them. At peace with every scale, pleased by the rapid patter of a rat's heart and the slow sighing of devouring wind against stone. Content with a star's burgeoning light and the swift death of a raindrop on a desert floor. — Steven Erikson

We all need somebody to talk to. It would be good if we talked ... not just pitter-patter, but real talk. We shouldn't be so afraid, because most people really like this contact; that you show you are vulnerable makes them free to be vulnerable. — Liv Ullmann

This was all strictly run-of-the-mill Victorian patter, striking only for the fact that a man who had so exerted himself to see the world afresh had returned with such stock observations. (And, really, very little has changed; one need only lightly edit the foregoing passages - the crude caricatures, the question of human inferiority, and the bit about the baboon - to produce the sort of profile of misbegotten Africa that remains standard to this day in the American and European press, and in the appeals for charity donations put out by humanitarian aid organizations.) — Philip Gourevitch