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Shrill Quotes & Sayings

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Top Shrill Quotes

Shrill Quotes By Yann Martel

And I knew what I wanted: I would settle in a hill station and write my novel. I had visions of myself at a table on a large veranda, my notes spread out in front of me next to a steaming cup of tea. Green hills heavy with mists would lie at my feet and the shrill cries of monkeys would fill my ears. The weather would be just tight, requiring a light sweater mornings and evenings, and something short-sleeved midday. Thus set up, pen in hand, for the sake of greater truth, I would turn Portugal into a fiction. That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming the reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence? What need did I have to go to Portugal? — Yann Martel

Shrill Quotes By Lindy West

Loving yourself is not antithetical to health, it is intrinsic to health. You can't take good care of a thing you hate. — Lindy West

Shrill Quotes By Tao Yuanming

Unsettled, a bird lost from the flock --
Keeps flying by itself in the dusk.
Back and forth, it has no resting place,
Night after night, more anguished its cries.
Its shrill sound yearns for the pure and distant --
Coming from afar, how anxiously it flutters!

It chances to find a pine tree growing all apart;
Folding its wings, it has come home at last.
In the gusty wind there is no dense growth;
This canopy alone does not decay.
Having found a perch to roost on,
In a thousand years it will not depart. — Tao Yuanming

Shrill Quotes By David Jeremiah

Amid the thousands of shrill voices screaming for our attention, there is but on Voice we need to hear. The voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. — David Jeremiah

Shrill Quotes By David Wong

I tried to say something cool, wound up stammering something like, "WANNA YOU WANNA WEENIE ME?" The end kind of trailed off in a shrill, choking warble. — David Wong

Shrill Quotes By Sylvia Plath

God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering. — Sylvia Plath

Shrill Quotes By Steven Saylor

There were a great many other such tableaux. As Martial had predicted, bears featured prominently in most of them. A temple thief was made to reenact the role of the robber Laureolus, made famous by the ancient plays of Ennius and Naevius; he was nailed to a cross and then subjected to the attack of the bears. A freedman who had killed his former master was made to put on a Greek chlamys and go walking though a stage forest populated by cavorting satyrs and nymphs, like Orpheus lost in the woods; when one of the satyrs played a shrill tune on his pipes, the trees dispersed and the man was subject to an attack by bears. An arsonist was made to strap on wings in imitation of Daedalus, ascend a high platform, and then leap off; the wings actually carried him aloft for a short distance, a remarkable sight, until he plunged into an enclosure full of bears and was torn to pieces. — Steven Saylor

Shrill Quotes By B.J. Ward

Will there be no more irises
in your garden tomorrow morning,
or perhaps any rainbows that covet
your roof will melt into Rorschach pastels
in your gutters and birdsongs in your windows
turn into shrill shriekings as you recall
how, for one moment, you were as brave
and equal to beauty as that which you feel?
Can't a world end gloriously? — B.J. Ward

Shrill Quotes By Christine Fonseca

I'm not certain what I notice first, the bright flickering light that illuminates the darkness underneath my eyelids, or the shrill screams that pull me form the dredges of sleep. Either way, I'm awake. And afraid. — Christine Fonseca

Shrill Quotes By Diana Gabaldon

The wind stirred the drying leaves of wild grapevines with a papery rustle behind me, and in the distance a murder of crows passed, squabbling in shrill cries. — Diana Gabaldon

Shrill Quotes By Lewis Carroll

Not like cats " cried the Mouse in a shrill passionate voice. "Would you like cats if you were me — Lewis Carroll

Shrill Quotes By Susan Dennard

Whatever mischief you're up to, I'll be there for it. Besides, someone must ensure that you behave like a lady."
I skittered to a stop. "Like a lady? Which is how exactly?" My voice was shrill. He had picked a poor moment to antagonize me.
"Biddable."
"Biddable? Biddable!" Somehow my pitch was even screechier than before. I kicked my bottom high and dipped my chest low-a perfect display of the Grecian bend. "It it's a camel you wish to have,sir,then you are on the wrong continent! — Susan Dennard

Shrill Quotes By David Cross

I just often find myself getting shrill, angry and the jokes get more incredulous. — David Cross

Shrill Quotes By E. M. Forster

Disdaining the heroic outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill, she misled her lover much as she misled her aunt. He mistook her fertility for weakness. He supposed her "as clever as they make 'em," but no more, not realizing that she was penetrating to the depths of his soul, and approving of what she found there. — E. M. Forster

Shrill Quotes By Louisa May Alcott

Oft in the silence of the night,
When the lonely moon rides high,
When wintry winds are whistling,
And we hear the owl's shrill cry,
In the quiet, dusky chamber,
By the flickering firelight,
Rising up between two sleepers,
Comes a spirit all in white. — Louisa May Alcott

Shrill Quotes By Wilfred Owen

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

Shrill Quotes By John Flanagan

Undoubtedly, Baron Arald thought with a deep sense of pride and satisfaction, this would go down as the weddiong of the year. Perhaps of the decade.
Already, it had the hallmarks of a roaring success . The Bores' Table was well attended with a group of eight people, currently vying to see who could be the most uninteresting, overbearing, and repetitive. Other guests glanced in their direction, giving silent thanks to the organizers who had seperated them from such dread-ful people.
There had been inevitable tearful flouncing and shrill recriminations when a girlfriend of one of the younger warriors from Sir Rodney's Battleschool had caught her boyfriend kissing another girl in a darkened corridor. It wouldn't be a wedding reception without that, Arald thought. — John Flanagan

Shrill Quotes By Victor Hugo

Usually, the murmur that rises up from Paris by day is the city talking; in the night it is the city breathing; but here it is the city singing. Listen, then, to this chorus of bell-towers - diffuse over the whole the murmur of half a million people - the eternal lament of the river - the endless sighing of the wind - the grave and distant quartet of the four forests placed upon the hills, in the distance, like immense organpipes - extinguish to a half light all in the central chime that would otherwise be too harsh or too shrill; and then say whetehr you know of anything in the world more rich, more joyous, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes - this furnace of music - these thousands of brazen voices, all singing together in flutes of stone three hundred feet high, than this city which is but one orchestra - this symphony which roars like a tempest. — Victor Hugo

Shrill Quotes By Agatha Christie

A sound of laughter was heard-they turned sharply. Vera Claythorne was standing in the yard. She cried out in a high shrill voice, shaken with wild bursts of laughter:
"Do they keep bees on this island? Tell me that. Where do we go for honey? Ha! ha!"
They stared at her uncomprehendingly. It was as though the sane well-balanced girl had gone mad right before their eyes. She went on in that high unnatural voice:
"Don't stare like that! As though you thought I was mad. It's sane enough what I'm asking. Bees, hives, bees! Oh, don't you understand? Haven't you read that idiotic rhyme? It's up in all of your bedrooms-put it there for you to study! We might have come here straightaway if we'd had sense. Seven little soldiers chopping up sticks. And the next verse, I know the whole thing by heart, I tell you! Six little soldier boys playing with a hive. And that's why I'm asking-do they keep bees on this island- isn't it damned funny ... ? — Agatha Christie

Shrill Quotes By Kiersten White

Fabulous Jack said, reaching down and plucking a crimson flower. A small scream sounded from it as he severed the stem. He smiled maliciously, then started stomping with abandon through the beds of blossoms, a chorus of tinny, shrill screams punctuating every step. — Kiersten White

Shrill Quotes By Rick Riordan

Ridiculous!" Chrysaor's voice turned shrill. He didn't seem sure where to level his sword-at Percy or his own crew.
"Save yourselves!" Percy warned. "It is too late for us!"
Then he gasped and pointed to the spot where Frank was hiding. "Oh, no! Frank is turning into a crazy dolphin!"
Nothing happened.
"I said," Percy repeated, "Frank is turning into a crazy dolphin!"
Frank stumbled out of nowhere, making a big show of grabbing his throat. "Oh, no," he said, like he was reading from a teleprompter. "I am turning into a crazy dolphin."
He began to change, his nose elongating into a snout, his skin becoming sleek and gray. He fell to the deck as a dolphin, his tail thumping against the boards.
The pirate crew disbanded in terror, chattering and clicking as they dropped their weapons, forgot the captives, ignored Chrysaor's orders, and jumped overboard. — Rick Riordan

Shrill Quotes By Chuang Chou

Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy. Great words are clear and limpid; little words are shrill and quarrelsome. — Chuang Chou

Shrill Quotes By Joseph Conrad

The well-known shrill voice startled Almayer from his dream of splendid future into the unpleasant realities of the present hour. An unpleasant voice too. He had heard it for many years, and with every year he liked it less. No matter; there would be an end to all this soon. — Joseph Conrad

Shrill Quotes By James Ensor

The mask means to me: freshness of color, sumptuous decoration, wild unexpected gestures, very shrill expressions, exquisite turbulence. — James Ensor

Shrill Quotes By Tim Kreider

He made the rest of us look complacent, lazy, indulgent, and apathetic, in the same way that vegans' conscientious diets can't help but indict carnivores' as callous. The impulse is to write such people off as self-righteous and shrill (which, conveniently, they often are) so that you can stop thinking about slaughterhouses and keep eating scrapple. — Tim Kreider

Shrill Quotes By Italo Calvino

Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves. "All books continue in the beyond ... — Italo Calvino

Shrill Quotes By Najwan Darwish

An Opera for Kamal Boullata

If I were one of those musicians
who penned grand Italian operas
where the notes, like clogs
strike all the chords
of Mediterraneans like us
I would compose one
and dedicate it to you

Yet sadly these shrill words
are all I have for you — Najwan Darwish

Shrill Quotes By Aldous Huxley

Whatever is he saying?" said a voice, very near, distinct and shrill through the warblings of the Super-Wurlitzer.
The Savage violently started and, uncovering his face, looked round. Five khaki twins, each with the stump of a long eclair in his right hand, and their identical faces variously smeared with liquid chocolate, were standing in a row, puggily goggling at him.
They met his eyes and simultaneously grinned. One of them pointed with his eclair butt.
"Is she dead?"he asked. — Aldous Huxley

Shrill Quotes By Eliot Spitzer

Mitt Romney's primary season embrace of the social and economic agenda of the more rabid elements of his party doomed him, especially the shrill immigration rhetoric and the harshly insensitive theory that no additional sacrifice or contribution should be sought from those at the top. — Eliot Spitzer

Shrill Quotes By Rohini Mohan

The girls were screaming in Tamil, except for one, who was repeating the word "epa" like a loud and shrill chant. That was not how the Sinhala word was usually used, but it was an expression Mugil had ofen heard Sinhalese policeman and the army lob at civilians. Epa! when they didn't want you to sell apples by the road in Jaffna. Epa! when you tried to drive on at the checkpoint at Vavuniya. Epa! Don't! The girl's voice seemed to ring through all of Kilinochchi. — Rohini Mohan

Shrill Quotes By James Joyce

What birds were they? ( ... ) He listened to the cries: like the squeak of mice be-
hind the wainscot : a shrill twofold note. But the notes
were long and shrill and whirring, unlike the cry of
vermin, falling a third or a fourth and trilled as the
flying beaks clove the air. Their cry was shrill and
clear and fine and falling like threads of silken light
unwound from whirring spools. — James Joyce

Shrill Quotes By William C. Bryant

Hark to that shrill, sudden shout,
The cry of an applauding multitude,
Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields
The living mass as if he were its soul! — William C. Bryant

Shrill Quotes By Terry Pratchett

You wanted magic, watch". She put her hand into the struggling mass of insects and made a shrill faint piping noise in the back of her throat. There was a movement in the mass, and a large bee lander and flatter then the others crawled onto her hand. A few workers followed it stroking it and generally ministering to it.
"How did you do that" said Esk.
"Ahhh," said Granny, "wouldn't you like to know".
"Yes I would that's why I asked Granny," said Esk severely.
"Do you think I used magic", Esk looked down at the queen bee, then up at the witch.
"No, I think you just know a lot about bees".
Granny grinned, "Exactly correct, that's one form of magic of course".
"What just knowing things".
"Knowing things that other people don't know," said Granny — Terry Pratchett

Shrill Quotes By David Mamet

They were and are children of privilege ... the privilege taught, learned, and imbibed, in a "liberal arts education" is the privilege to indict. These children have, in the main, never worked, learned to obey, command, construct, amend, or complete - to actually contribute to the society. They have learned to be shrill, and that their indictment, on the economy, on sex, on race, on the environment, though based on no experience other than hearsay, must trump any discourse, let alone opposition. It occurred to me that I had seen this behavior elsewhere, where it was called developmental difficulty. — David Mamet

Shrill Quotes By Nick Hahn

When Ginny realized I wouldn't ask Max for a divorce, her request became an ultimatum. One day she screamed, "Make up your mind, Simon. It's either me or your wife, you can't have it both ways." She didn't sound vulnerable like a rejected woman, she sounded shrill and demanding with a threatening tone. (terrific line) This had to end, and soon. — Nick Hahn

Shrill Quotes By Charles Dickens

I sold myself,' said Mr. Bumble, pursuing the same train of relection, 'for six teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a milk-pot; with a small quantity of second-hand furniture, and twenty pound in money. I went very reasonable. Cheap, dirt cheap!'
'Cheap!' cried a shrill voice in Mr. Bumble's ear: 'you would have been dear at any price; and dear enough I paid for you, Lord above knows that! — Charles Dickens

Shrill Quotes By Lindy West

We're all building our world, right now, in real time. Let's build it better. — Lindy West

Shrill Quotes By Kenneth Grahame

Like a black pirate flag on the blue ocean of air, a hawk hung ominous; then, plummet-wise, dropped to the hedgerow, whence there rose, thin and shrill, a piteous voice of squealing. By — Kenneth Grahame

Shrill Quotes By Christopher Hitchens

The speakers use all accents of sincerity and sweetness, and they continuously praise virtue; but they never speak as if power would be theirs tomorrow and they would use it for virtuous action. And their audiences also do not seem to regard themselves as predestined to rule; they clap as if in defiance, and laugh at their enemies behind their hands, with the shrill laughter of children. They want to be right, not to do right. They feel no obligation to be part of the main tide of life, and if that meant any degree of pollution they would prefer to divert themselves from it and form a standing pool of purity. In fact, they want to receive the Eucharist, be beaten by the Turks, and then go to heaven. — Christopher Hitchens

Shrill Quotes By Marcel Proust

Mme Verdurin asked him: "Did you have some of my orangeade?" Whereupon M. de Charlus, with a gracious smile, in a crystalline tone which he rarely adopted, and with endless simperings and wrigglings of the hips, replied: "No, I preferred its neighbour, which is strawberry-juice, I think. It's delicious."[ ... ]But on hearing M. de Charlus say, in that shrill voice and with that smile and those gestures, "No, I preferred its neighbour, the strawberry-juice," one could say: "Ah, he likes the stronger sex,"[ ... ] — Marcel Proust

Shrill Quotes By Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Night of the Broken Glass
dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust
Dark is the night
I hear your heartbeat
In the room there is no light
Fire in the night
I hear them marching
Your boots are brown
Glass in my thoughts
Hear the fear in this night
Shrill screams shattered
I do not hear your heartbeat
Why is the light so bright in the room — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Shrill Quotes By M.F.K. Fisher

Probably no strychnine has sent as many husbands into their graves as mealtime scolding has, and nothing has driven more men into the arms of other women as the sound of a shrill whine at table. — M.F.K. Fisher

Shrill Quotes By C.E. Murphy

It's an impossible castle in an enchanted snowstorm in a haunted forest," I said in a voice slightly more shrill than I had hoped for. "Naturally there are invisible servants to care for the horses." "Naturally." Father sounded as rattled as I, which made me feel a little better. — C.E. Murphy

Shrill Quotes By A.G. Howard

Morpheus's gaze flashes to mine, then back to the chess piece wrapped in his magic. "Stop crying," his quirky voice scolds. "Queens don't cry. I taught you better than that."
I bite my quivering lip, and tiny Alice strokes the caterpillar's face. "But you're crying ... "
Morpheus lowers a wing and shades his cheek along with the transparent glimmer of his jeweled markings. "Well" - his shrill voice cracks slightly - "contrary to my preferences for lace and velvet, I'm not the queen. So I can cry all I like. — A.G. Howard

Shrill Quotes By Tennessee Williams

We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day ... — Tennessee Williams

Shrill Quotes By Dave Barry

Common criticism of the Internet is that it is dominated by the crude, the uninformed, the immature, the smug, the untalented, the repetitious, the pathetic, the hostile, the deluded, the sefl-righteous, and the shrill. This criticism overlooks the fact that the Internet also offers - for the savvy individual who knows where to look - the tasteless and borderline insane. — Dave Barry

Shrill Quotes By Stephen King

Gas!" Hallorann cried, his voice shrill and breaking. "Gonna burn you, baby! Dig on it awhile! — Stephen King

Shrill Quotes By Anonymous

Wouldn't you rather see the real Amsterdam?' No, Cat, dammit, no! I had no desire to see the real Amsterdam. We had reality back in Berkshire, that's not why we were here; we had no interest in the way things really were. A perfectly co-ordinated schedule of sightseeing was unravelling before my eyes. 'If we don't go to the Anne Frank House today, the whole plan falls apart.' I felt myself getting shrill. — Anonymous

Shrill Quotes By Simon Blackburn

The absolutist lays down the law, but the relativist hears only roaring and bawling. Or, when the relativist voice, as it is heard from philosophers such as Nietzsche or James, itself starts to grate and sounds shrill, as it often does, and when the relativist then offers concessions, the absolutist hears only insincerity. The war of words can often turn into a dialogue of the deaf, and this too if part of its power to arouse outrage and fury. — Simon Blackburn

Shrill Quotes By Lewis Carroll

Them again, and all would change to dull reality
the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds
the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep- bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy
and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all thy other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard
while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's heavy sobs. Lastly, she pictured to herself — Lewis Carroll

Shrill Quotes By James C. Dobson

Malkin concluded with this advice for parents: Be "prudes." Be "rude." Be "shrill." And never, ever feel ashamed for asking out loud, "Have you no shame?"[30] — James C. Dobson

Shrill Quotes By Jiang Rong

The horses sped through the dense autumn grass, their hooves kicking up moths in various colors: pinks, oranges, whites, blues. There were also green, yellow, and multicolored grasshoppers and other autumn insects. A few purple swallows circled overhead, singing in their shrill voices; sometimes they darted right past the horses, and sometimes they shot up into the sky, enjoying the insect feast provided by the horses and humans. — Jiang Rong

Shrill Quotes By Willa Cather

Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the grass about him all the small creatures of day began to tune their tiny instruments. Birds and insects without number began to chirp, to twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all manner of fresh shrill noises. The pasture was flooded with light; every clump of ironweed and snow-on-the-mountain threw a long shadow, and the golden light seemed to be rippling through the curly grass like the tide racing in. — Willa Cather

Shrill Quotes By Lynsay Sands

Husband?" Averill's voice was growing shrill with worry as she asked, "Have you swooned?"
I'm a warrior, wife. Warriors do no' swoon," Kade growled, forcing away the faintness trying to lay claim to him.
Oh," she said, sounding doubtful. "It's just that your eyes were closed."
I was resting them," he snapped.
I see," she murmured, and for some reason that irritated the hell out of him. — Lynsay Sands

Shrill Quotes By Carol Birch

Mr. Jamrach led me through the lobby and into the menagerie. The first was a parrot room, a fearsome screaming place of mad round eyes, crimson breasts that beat against bars, wings that flapped against their neighbours, blood red, royal blue, gypsy yellow, grass green. The birds were crammed along perches. Macaws hung upside down here and there, batting their white eyes, and small green parrots flittered above our heads in drifts. A hot of cockatoos looked down from on high over the shrill madness, high crested, creamy breasted. The screeching was like laughter in hell. — Carol Birch

Shrill Quotes By Tom Shales

'I Love Lucy,' the first classic, really belonged more to the Wacky Woman genre than the domestic sitcom; 'My Little Margie' and 'I Married Joan' were among the shrill, coarse imitations. — Tom Shales

Shrill Quotes By J.R.R. Tolkien

And in that very moment, away behind in some far corner of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed reckoning nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Shrill Quotes By Jeff Guinn

In those few seconds Bonnie screamed, a high shrill wail that haunted the men about to kill her for the rest of their lives. — Jeff Guinn

Shrill Quotes By John Dos Passos

If any man has a ghost
Bourne has a ghost
a tiny twisted unscared ghost in a black cloak
hopping along the grimy old brick and brownstone streets still left in downtown New York,
crying out in a shrill soundless giggle:
War is the health of the State. — John Dos Passos

Shrill Quotes By Leigh Bardugo

Jesper!" I'm going to kill that little idiot. "What do you want?" he shouted down. "Close your eyes!" "You can't kiss me from down there, Wylan." "Just do it!" "This better be good!" He shut his eyes. "Are they closed?" "Damn it, Wylan, yes, they're - " There was a shrill, shrieking howl, and then bright light bloomed behind Jesper's lids. — Leigh Bardugo

Shrill Quotes By Tony Blair

But all progressive movements have to beware their own successes. The progress they make reinvents the society they work in, and they must in turn reinvent themselves to keep up, otherwise they become hollow echoes from a once loud, strong voice, reverberating still, but to little effect. As their consequence diminishes, so their dwindling adherents become ever more shrill and strident, more solicitous of protecting their own shrinking space rather than understanding that the voice of the times has moved on and they must listen before speaking. It happens in all organizations. It is fatal to those who are never confronted by a reckoning that forces them to face up and get wise. — Tony Blair

Shrill Quotes By Haruki Murakami

The shrill witch-hunter voices of the showbiz correspondents would bring up every last bit left in your stomach from the night before — Haruki Murakami

Shrill Quotes By Jamie McGuire

Hello?" he said, waiting out the shrill stream on the other end of the line. He smiled, "Because I'm her husband. I can answer her phone, now." He glanced at me, and then shoved open the cab door, offering his hand. "We're at the airport, America. Why don't you and Shep pick us up and you can yell at us both on the way home? Yes, the whole way home. We should arrive around three. All right, Mare. See you then." He winced with her sharp words and then handed me the phone. "You weren't kidding. She's pissed. — Jamie McGuire

Shrill Quotes By Jamie Holoran

There was something strangely compelling about a Japanese guy with lamb-chop sideburns and a voice so shrill you could be forgiven for thinking his testicles were wired to the national grid. — Jamie Holoran

Shrill Quotes By Tadeusz Konwicki

But in all that suffering, the most painful suffering of all was the consciousness that it was all banal, had all been discovered a long time ago, and was known to all the generations past, all just a repeated series, stamped out by our genes. That the universe was filled to its edges with groans as alike as two notes, that those particular groans formed one great groan similar to the shrill parliament of the sparrows and that groan became an interstellar roar, the inaudible groan of the aging cosmos. — Tadeusz Konwicki

Shrill Quotes By Richard Dawkins

People say I'm shrill and strident. — Richard Dawkins

Shrill Quotes By Eric Liu

Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics, it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar. — Eric Liu

Shrill Quotes By Aldous Huxley

Outside, in the garden, it was playtime. Naked in the warm June sunshine, six or seven hundred little boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns, or playing ball games, or squatting silently in twos and threes among the flowering shrubs. The roses were in bloom, two nightingales soliloquized in the boskage, a cuckoo was just going out of tune among the lime trees. The air was drowsy with the murmur of bees and helicopters. — Aldous Huxley

Shrill Quotes By Stacy Schiff

How does a woman in authority convey that authority? Is it possible for a woman to rule without sounding shrill? Is it possible for a woman to manage without manipulating? All of these things seem to me to be very much at the fore today, and were no less the case 2,000 years ago. — Stacy Schiff

Shrill Quotes By Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life? — Mary Oliver

Shrill Quotes By Christos Tsiolkas

Hugo pulled away from Rosie's teat. 'No one is allowed to touch my body without my permission.' His voice was shrill and confident. Hector wondered where he learnt those words. From Rosie? At child care? Were they community announcements on the frigging television? — Christos Tsiolkas

Shrill Quotes By James Martineau

However constant the visitations of sickness and bereavement, the fall of the year is most thickly strewn with the fall of human life. Everywhere the spirit of some sad power seems to direct the time; it hides from us the blue heavens, it makes the green wave turbid; it walks through the fields, and lays the damp ungathered harvest low; it cries out in the night wind and the shrill hail; it steals the summer bloom from the infant cheek; it makes old age shiver to the heart; it goes to the churchyard, and chooses many a grave. — James Martineau

Shrill Quotes By Caroline Kepnes

You ooze joy and she is an open wound, shrill and wan, unfucked and unloved. — Caroline Kepnes

Shrill Quotes By J.R.R. Tolkien

A shrill cry rang out in the night; and he felt a pain like a dart of poisoned ice pierce his left shoulder. Even as he swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand. With a last effort Frodo, dropping his sword, slipped the Ring from his finger and closed his right hand tight upon it. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Shrill Quotes By James Dashner

Open on three," Minho said. "And guard lady, you try anything or run away, I guarantee one of us will get you. Thomas, you count off." The woman pulled out her key card but said nothing. "One," Thomas began. "Two." He paused, allowed himself a moment to suck in a breath, but before he could yell the last number an alarm started blaring and the lights went out. CHAPTER 14 Thomas blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the darkness. The alarm rang in shrill, deafening bursts. He sensed Minho stand up, then heard him shuffling about. "The guard's gone!" his friend shouted. "I can't find her! — James Dashner

Shrill Quotes By Samantha Bruce-Benjamin

It is a dull sensation, your heart breaking, like the sound of a pebble dropping on the sand. Not a shattering, not a tearing apart, there is nothing shrill or grandiose about the sensation. It is merely an internal realization that something treasured you never knew you had is leaving forever. — Samantha Bruce-Benjamin

Shrill Quotes By Jennifer L. Armentrout

Some girl named Eva has him convinced that you put out after one beer."
"What?" My voice was as shrill as the ringing tardy bell
"I personally don't believe it" he went on blithely, "and I have a Porsche. Not as much leg room as a Beamer, but so much hotter, I'm told. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Shrill Quotes By Charles Mackay

Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free. — Charles Mackay

Shrill Quotes By Lisa Roecker

There was one obvious solution to this problem, but it involved me uttering four inconceivable words to Seth Allen. This was not going to be pretty.
"Take off your pants," I mumbled in Seth's direction.
"What?" Seth's voice was shrill as it cracked.
"Your pants. Take them off." I spoke louder now, impatient.
"But...I'll be naked and cold, and I still haven't had the chance to bulk up my legs at the gym so I'm just not sure..."
I cut Seth off with with my best "Are you effing kidding me?" Face and jerked my head towards Maddie in the backseat.
"Oh, right, I get it. Maddie needs pants and I have them, so I'll just go ahead and, um, well, strip down. Could you..." Seth's cheeks went up in twin flames. — Lisa Roecker

Shrill Quotes By Pascal Mercier

I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty and grandeur. I need their imperious silence. I need it against the witless bellowing of the barracks yard and the witty chatter of the yes-men. I want to hear the rustling of the organ, this deluge of ethereal notes. I need it against the shrill farce of marches. — Pascal Mercier

Shrill Quotes By Edmund Spenser

The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded. — Edmund Spenser

Shrill Quotes By Jess Walter

Don't ever say that after sex, do you understand? If you feel the urge to say it, go see the girl first thing in the morning, with her night breath and no makeup ... watch her on the toilet ... listen to her with her friends ... go meet her hairy mother and her shrill friends ... and if you still feel the need to say such a stupid thing, then God help you. — Jess Walter

Shrill Quotes By Al Gore

If we did not take action to solve this crisis, it could indeed threaten the future of human civilization. That sounds shrill. It sounds hard to accept. I believe it's deadly accurate. But again, we can solve it. — Al Gore

Shrill Quotes By Kenneth P. Green

We can expect the climate crisis industry to grow increasingly shrill, and increasingly hostile toward anyone who questions their authority. — Kenneth P. Green

Shrill Quotes By Franz Kafka

When the little mouse, which was loved as none other was in the mouse-world, got into a trap one night and with a shrill scream forfeited its life for the sight of the bacon, all the mice in the district, in their holes were overcome by trembling and shaking; with eyes blinking uncontrollably they gazed at each other one by one, while their tails scraped the ground busily and senselessly. Then they came out, hesitantly, pushing one another, all drawn towards the scene of death. There it lay, the dear little mouse, its neck caught in the deadly iron, the little pink legs drawn up, and now stiff the feeble body that would so well have deserved a scrap of bacon.
The parents stood beside it and eyed their child's remains. — Franz Kafka

Shrill Quotes By Anton Chekhov

The boy sang in a shrill high descant and seemed to be trying not to sing in tune. — Anton Chekhov

Shrill Quotes By Lyudmila Ulitskaya

Sonechka, meanwhile, placid soul that she was - cocooned by the thousand volumes of her reading, lulled by the hazy murmurings of the Greek myths, the hypnotically shrill recorder fluting of the Middle Ages, the misty windswept yearning of Ibsen, the minutely detailed tedium of Balzac, the astral music of Dante, the siren song of the piercing voices of Rilke and Novalis, seduced by the moralistic despair of the great Russian writers calling out to the heart of heaven itself - this placid soul had no awareness that her great moment was at hand. — Lyudmila Ulitskaya

Shrill Quotes By N. T. Wright

The gentle art of being gentle - of kindness and forgiveness, sensitivity and thoughtfulness and generosity and humility and good old-fashioned love - have gone out of fashion. Ironically, everyone is demanding their "rights," and this demand is so shrill that it destroys one of the most basic "rights," if we can put it like that: the "right," or at least the longing and hope, to have a peaceful, stable, secure, and caring place to live, to be, to learn, and to flourish. — N. T. Wright

Shrill Quotes By Pascal Mercier

NOBREZA SILENCIOSA. SILENT NOBILITY. It is a mistake to believe that the crucial moments of a life when its habitual direction changes forever must be loud and shrill dramatics, washed away by fierce internal surges. This is a kitschy fairy tale started by boozing journalists, flashbulb-seeking filmmakers and authors whose minds look like tabloids. In truth, the dramatics of a life-determining experience are often unbelievably soft. It has so little akin to the bang, the flash, of the volcanic eruption that, at the moment it is made, the experience is often not even noticed. When it deploys its revolutionary effect and plunges a life into a brand-new light giving it a brand-new melody, it does that silently and in this wonderful silence resides its special nobility. — Pascal Mercier

Shrill Quotes By Aeschylus

For in the voyage of the heart, there is a freight of hatred, and the wind of wrath blows shrill. — Aeschylus

Shrill Quotes By Seanan McGuire

The van doors were closed and - as I learned to my dismay when I tried to wrench them open - locked. I slapped my pocket and swore. "Sloane, I don't have my keys!" I shouted. "Do you?" "Like you people let me drive? Fuck, no, I don't have keys to the van." She bent, picking up a large rock from the curb. "On the other hand, I don't really need them, do I?" "Sloane - " My protest died when I heard Jeff scream inside the van. It was a shrill, agonized sound, and it hurt my heart in ways I hadn't known were possible. "Throw the fucking rock, Sloane!" The words had barely left my lips before Sloane's rock was smashing through the driver's side window — Seanan McGuire

Shrill Quotes By Anonymous

Too, if you're a true contemplative, your life and words will overflow with spiritual wisdom, compassion, and fruitful insight, because you're sure to measure out what you say carefully and calmly, eschewing lies and speaking without the shrill pretense of hypocrites. — Anonymous

Shrill Quotes By Philip Yancey

I do not know if that theory is correct, but I do know that singling out one behavior as "sin" and emphasizing it over others provides a convenient way of dodging our own need for grace. High-minded moralism and shrill pronouncements of judgment may help fundraising, but they undermine a gospel of grace. — Philip Yancey

Shrill Quotes By Thomas Frank

The fourth estate came together in an unprecedented professional consensus. They chose insulting the other side over trying to understand what motivated them. They transformed opinion writing into a vehicle for high moral boasting. What could possibly have gone wrong with such an approach? [...] Put this question in slightly more general terms and you are confronting the single great mystery of 2016. The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn't all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn't accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it's time to consider whether there's something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away. — Thomas Frank

Shrill Quotes By Renee Vivien

I detest heavy perfume and shrill voices. — Renee Vivien

Shrill Quotes By Cynthia Heimel

We have no faith in ourselves. I have never met a woman who, deep down in her core, really believes she has great legs. And if she suspects that she might have great legs, then she's convinced that she has a shrill voice and no neck. — Cynthia Heimel

Shrill Quotes By Terri Cheney

I've never liked the telephone. It's a noisy, shrill intruder. If it were up to me, I'd ban all phones and bring back visiting days, like in Jane Austen and Edith Wharton novels: — Terri Cheney

Shrill Quotes By Richard Yates

Then he was gone, and Prentice was alone in a silence that rang with all his shrill, unspoken words. He was so alone that the only thing to do was lie back on the bed and roll over and draw up his knees like an unborn baby, staring with dry eyes at a cluster of pink flowers on the wallpaper, knowing he had never been so alone in his life. — Richard Yates

Shrill Quotes By Tarun Shanker

Unable to break the tenacious grip, Claude spun around and forced Mr. Braddock backward, slamming him hard into the walls, crashing into bookcases, and finally, in a desperate move, throwing himself out the street window. A shrill, useless scream escaped from my throat as the glass shattered and the cold London air rushed in. The pair disappeared out the window. There was the briefest silence, a thud, and a rattling. — Tarun Shanker

Shrill Quotes By Krista Tippett

For every shrill and violent voice that throws itself in front of microphones and cameras in the name of God, there are countless lives of gentleness and good works who will not. We need to see and hear them, as well, to understand the whole story of religion in our world. — Krista Tippett