Sing Off Quotes & Sayings

Walk with me to the edge of the city, / Take off your shoes and feel the earth. / Remember who you are. You are a star. / A mountain, that fountain in the sun. / Your heart is the velvet cave / Where birds sing. — Julia Cameron

Better a live coward than a dead hero, I've always believed. Sure people will still sing about dead heroes from time to time, but aside from that they get little attention. Unless they manage to get a holiday named after them. Even then, it's not like they get to enjoy the day off. — Bill Allen

Brent waited for a moment, to see if he could hear anything on the other side of the door, but only silence greeted him. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off. Couldn't focus on anything but getting through to her. "What do I need to do, baby? Do you want me to sing 'Wind Beneath My Wings'? I'll do it. I'll deafen everyone in this building if that's what you want." When the silence remained, Brent's head dropped against the door with a curse. "You're really going to make me do this, aren't you?" Then he gave Bette Midler a run for her money. — Tessa Bailey

The war is going on, and I'm singing. But I can't bandage up the wounded like Tala. I can, of course. But so can hundreds of other young women. Let the daring and decisive ones do it, not those like me. No, I'm daring and decisive, too. And I want to sing. It's not my fault that my youth came in time of war! I won't get another youth! And I'm convinced that singing when all around is hatred and death is no less important. Maybe even more important.

This is what I believe: If somewhere on earth the wounded are finished off with rifle butts, that means somewhere else people have to be singing and rejoicing in life! The more death there is around, the more important to counter it with life, love, and beauty! — Mikhail Shishkin

When Phil and I hit that one spot where I call it 'The Everly Brothers,' I don't know where it is. 'Cause it's not me and it's not him. It's the two of us together. I sing the lead, and so I can drift off. Then we'll come back in together and the whole thing happens again. It amazes me sometimes. — Don Everly

I sing of those who cannot. To view human suffering as an abstraction, as a statement about how plucky we all are, is to blow air through brass while the boys and girls march in parade off to war. Seeing the flesh as only a challenge to the spirit is as false as seeing the spirit as only a challenge to the flesh. On the planet are people with whole and strong bodies, whose wounded spirits need the constant help that the quadriplegic needs for his body. What we need is not the sound of horns rising to the sky, but the steady beat of the bass drum. When you march to a bass drum, your left foot touches the earth with each beat, and you can feel the drum in your body: boom and boom and boom and pity people pity people pity people. — Andre Dubus

Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky,
Won't you sing your song to Earth as she passes by?
Your sweetest silver melody, a rhythm and a ryme,
A lullaby of pleasant dreams as you make your climb.
Send the forests off to bed, the mountains tuck in tight,
Rock the ocean gently, and the deserts kiss goodnight.
Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky,
You sing your song so sweetly after sunshine passes by. — Marissa Meyer

I was about to ask Alec how he was getting on with the dealf when I heard him singing. The fucker was not only good looking, but he could sing and sing really well. His choice of song caused my eyes to roll though.

"Sex bomb, sex bomb, I'm a sex bomb-"

"You're a sex bomb!" I corrected the lyric cutting him off as I went into the bathroom. — L.A. Casey

Nobody goes "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" when they sing it. Maybe because it puts the life adventure in such clear and simple terms. The small creature is alive and looks for adventure. Here's the drainpipe
a long tunnel going up toward some light. The spider doesn't even think about it
just goes. Disaster befalls it
rain, flood, powerful foces. And the spider is knocked down and out beyond where it started. Does the spider say, "To hell with that"? No. Sun comes out
clears things up
dries off the spider. And the small creature goes over to the drainpipe and looks up and thinks it really wants to know what is up there. — Robert Fulghum

When I started to sing, my mother would have me engaged to perform at the Women's Christian Temperance Union national or annual meetings. I would hate doing this because I wanted to play baseball or go off skiing. — Maureen Forrester

What a nightmare!" cried Imtaz. "There's nothing gloomier than nature. You'll lose your sense of humor in the country. Unable to criticize the trees, your intelligence will lose its edge as you contemplate the plowed fields, and then, it'll be very easy for you to sing the praises of your fellow men because you won't be here to see and listen to them. Don't make that mistake. Never cut yourself off from mankind because, with distance, you're more likely to grant men extenuating circumstances. I love you too much to let you succumb to that weakness. — Albert Cossery

All singers have this fault: if asked to sing among friends they are never so inclined; if unasked, they never leave off. — Horace

At this point doubts started to creep in. One was always reading of
young men running away to sea, or people shipping as deck-hands and
working their passages. There seemed to be no special qualifications
needed. No ropes had to be spliced. No rigging had to be climbed. All
you did was paint the anchor, chip rust off the deck plating and say
'aye, aye, sir', when addressed by an officer. It was a tough life and
you met tough men. There were weevils in the ship's biscuits and you had
little to eat but skilly. Quarrels were settled with bare fists and you
went about naked to the waist. But one of the crew always had a
concertina and there were sing-songs when the day's work was done. In
after life you wrote a book about it. — Eric Ambler

I get ticked off a lot because I don't think she [Faith Hill] gets the respect she deserves. I tell her all the time, "If you were 300 pounds and dog ugly, people would think you were the greatest singer in the world." They have the tendency to look at her and never really listen to her. The reason it works is she's a fantastic artist. It's almost embarrassing for me to sing with her sometimes. — Tim McGraw

Sometimes it is hard to sing and dance at the same time, but I would rather be off and be real and genuine about it to my fans. — Kesha

By five or six, when the heels start to hurt, I kick off my shoes and walk bare feet. But that's not a big deal. Nobody else is at the office at that time, and as for singing loudly, I don't sing loudly. I might hum a tune at times when I am thinking about something, but that's all fine. — Indra Nooyi

Yeah, for me there are other challenges that aren't musical too. Like you just don't have as many people to feed off of energy wise, you are loading in and out and you are driving yourself more. Most of the challenges that count are the musical ones. I don't know why people come out to the shows, but I never think that it is to hear me play the guitar and sing. I think it must be in the writing and the presentation, which are the areas that I feel most comfortable. — Stephen Kellogg

When entertainment was begun, during the Depression, it was supposed to take people's minds off reality. People could sing, dance, act or do anything. It was the type of entertainment that was available. — Tina Yothers

Mainly I was able to perform with music - I played the French horn, I would sing, and I was a drummer in the pipe band. So I think it was a way to show off. — Ewan McGregor

If Janet Jackson does the story of her life and I'm still young enough, I am there. No one can pull her off like I can. I have a dance background. I'm definitely not cutting an album anytime soon, but I can lip-synch all day. I can't sing, but I can act like it very well. — Keshia Knight Pulliam

What's up with your friend?" Dawn asks after a few minutes. I doubt she's asking about K.T. I follow Dawn's stare and wonder how much she can see from this far away.
Mari is standing in front of the store's nearly empty stone display and listening as K.T. points out the different types of stone.
"Her name is Mariella."
"I don't usually get a read on people unless they're giving off some pretty strong vibes, but wow. That girl needs an aura cleansing fast."
"Yeah. I know." I look away from Mari, forcing myself to focus on the selection Dawn has laid out in front of me. "It's a work in progress. — Erica Cameron

A lot of the way I sing is playing off other musicians. It's what I love to do the most. — Gloria Estefan

That was how we spoke, my mother and I: in puns and games and rhymes. In, you might say, lyrics. This was our tragedy. We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny. We were tinpan alleycats, but the gift of music had been withheld. We could not sing along, though we always knew the words. Still, defiantly, we roared our tuneless roars, we fell off the high notes and were trampled by the low ones. And if bitter ices were the consequence, well, there were worse fates in the world than that. — Salman Rushdie

The sound of running feet indicated that Sergeant Detritus was bringing some of the latest trainees back from their morning run. He could hear the jody Detritus had taught them. Somehow, you could tell it was made up by a troll: "Now we sing dis stupid song! Sing it as we run along! Why we sing dis we don't know! We can't make der words rhyme prop'ly!" "Sound off!" "One! Two!" "Sound off!" "Many! Lots!" "Sound off!" "Er ... what? — Terry Pratchett

I've never taken drugs. My drug, I suppose, is drink. I never drink before I sing, but I do make up for it when I come off! — Bonnie Tyler

I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse ...
To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.
It is to you, Tania, that I am singing. I wish that I could sing better, more melodiously, but then perhaps you would never have consented to listen to me. You have heard the others sing and they have left you cold. They sang too beautifully, or not beautifully enough. — Henry Miller

Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media. — William Safire

When you're insecure about your technique, you close yourself off. Your shoulders tighten. The first thing, you should open your body and sing. Be happy. Sing real vowels, real Italian vowels. When you're learning a good way to sing technically, you find it's very easy to sing well. — Marcello Giordani

When you are in the studio, you don't have anybody to feed off of; meanwhile, when you are playing live, you interact with people and you feel the energy in the room. When the crowd is going crazy, that definitely impacts your vocal performance. I prefer to sing live. — Marina And The Diamonds

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief-
woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep. — Gerard Manley Hopkins

When I sing, I have a sense of peace, I feel like my brain turns off, and I become the core person of who I am - the essence of me. I feel connected to whatever is out there. It's almost like I leave my body and get to watch. — Michelle Branch

Go on philosophers
teach, enlighten, kindle, think aloud, speak up, run joyfully toward broad daylight, fraternize in the public squares, announce the glad tidings, lavish your alphabets, proclaim human rights, sing your Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms, tear off green branches from the oak trees. Make thought a whirlwind. This multitude can be sublimated. Let us learn to avail ourselves of this vast conflagration of principles and virtues, which occasionally sparkles, bursts, and shudders. These bare feet, these naked arms, these rags, these shades of ignorance, depths of despair, the gloom can be used for the conquest of the ideal. Look through the medium of the people, and you will discern the truth. This lowly sand that you trample underfoot, if you throw it into a furnace and let it melt and seethe, will become sparkling crystal; and thanks to such as this a Galileo and a Newton will discover the stars. — Victor Hugo

I want lots and lots of sex."
"You really are the woman of my dreams."
"First round, wet shower sex, after we scrape off a few layers of the Alaskan tundra, then a short and satisfying lunch break. Then a second round of make-the-mattress-sing sex."
"I feel a tear of gratitude and awe forming in the corner of my eyes. Don't think less of me. — Nora Roberts

Basically, I didn't want to sing anything for the sake of singing it. There were some songs where I really wailed, but because it's such an intimate space anything I chose to sing simply to make sound was going to come off an inauthentic. So I was really happy with where it landed - every song I sang, I loved for one reason or another. I didn't have to worry about selling a song. — Aaron Tveit

Peter stood, cleared his throat, and began to hum softly, then sing, slowly building up the song as his voice cleared. He found the old tune, the song of the Sunbird. And as he sung, as his rich voice echoed off the tall cliffs, the birds and the faeries lent him their voice and soon the tune drifted throughtout the garden. — Brom

Because people get together, sit in a room, sing some songs and share scripture, they think they've experienced the life of the church. If that's all been real, they may have. More times than not, however, it's just a routine they feel good about having accomplished, but in the end they haven't really shared his life at all. That's why I like pulling commitment off of people. You find out where they really are on the inside and that's good for you and for them. — Wayne Jacobsen And Dave Coleman

Clarabelle ... Clarabelle ... You worked as Kenspeckle Grouse's assistant, did you not?'
'One of the. He fired all the others.'
'But not you?'
'He fired me on the second day, but I kept coming in. I had nowhere else to go.'
'And then you killed him.'
'Yes.'
'A Remnant squirmed inside you, and you killed Kenspeckle Grouse.'
'Yes.'
Nye grinned. 'You're hired. But I have warn you, if you try to kill me, I will dissect you and sing along to your screams.'
'Can I have Mondays off?'
'You may. — Derek Landy

Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
Celie: You saying God is vain?
Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don't notice it.
Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the bible?
Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention ... except walk?
[they laugh]
Shug: Oh Miss Celie, I feels like singing! — Alice Walker

A white crowned night sparrow sings as the moon sets. Thunder growls far off. Our campfire is a single light. Amongst a hundred peaks and waterfalls. The manifold voices of falling water Take all night. Wrapped in your down bag Starlight on you cheeks and eyelids Your breath comes and goes In a tiny cloud in the frosty night. Ten thousand birds sing in the sunrise. Ten thousand years revolve without change. All this will never be again. — Kenneth Rexroth

When I do write, it happens really easily. I'll just kind of sing along to whatever I'm playing, then find a line to build off of, then sit down and write. When I do write, I take care of business! — Isaac Brock

Sing, and princess left off weeping. Then he went — Jacob Grimm

The audience for 'Lootera' is far less than for my other kind of films. Just because I pulled it off doesn't mean I will change my tastes. I love to watch masala films, and I love to sing, dance and say those larger-than-life dialogues. But whenever I get a chance, and I really feel the connect, I will do a performance-oriented film. — Sonakshi Sinha

What do you say to taking up our game where we left off? I was winning, you will recall.'
Winning, for all love: how your ageing memory does betray you, my poor friend,' said Stephen, fetching his 'cello. They tuned, and at no great distance Killick said to his mate, 'There they are, at it again. Squeak, squeak; boom, boom. And when they do start a-playing, it's no better. You can't tell t'other from one. Never nothing a man could sing to, even as drunk as Davy's sow.'
I remember them in the Lively: but it is not as chronic as a wardroom full of gents with German flutes, bellyaching night and day, like we had in Thunderer. No. Live and let live, I say.'
Fuck you, William Grimshaw. — Patrick O'Brian

We have been cut off from our souls in the West, and because romantic love has become our religion, we think we can find fulfillment through this extraordinary and powerful force that draws us into an illusion of permanence. Passion makes us feel alive, makes us sing, makes us feel in touch with something powerful and wonderful, just as it would if we followed this meaning in life in a more spiritual practice. In the West it is often through such relationships, through another human being, that we search desperately for something, not knowing it is to be found within ourselves. — Sarah Bartlett

Violet lay next to me and I scooted over, making room for the two of us on the twin-sized bed. She took my hand in hers, slowly and deliberately threading our fingers together, like she used to do when we were little girls. And just like that, I felt six years old again, with my eight-year-old sister next to me, shaking in fear as we listened to one of Momma's tirades outside our bedroom. My eyes flooded with tears while I gripped her hand, hanging on for dear life. Violet softly hummed the old lullaby she made up years ago, the one she used to sing to me when I was scared or sad. I drifted off to sleep, — Denise Grover Swank

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into reality. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility and security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plans the wars and point the way and we will point the gun. — Dalton Trumbo

I'd like to go back to five years old again. Just sometimes. To be turning over rocks and looking for pill bugs and holding earthworms, playing dolls, erecting forts, digging through dirt for marbles, burrowing in leaf piles, failing at igloo building, when my biggest concern was going to sleep with the lights off. I wish I was five again, before things got hard, before I was forced to grow up way too early and been stuck in this "adult" thing way too long. I wish I could sit in my Grandpa's lap and let him sing me crazy Irish songs and go over the names of the planets. "Gwampa, tell me about Outer Space." ... "Gwampa, sing the Swimming Song."
I wish I could go back there, just for a little while, and pick raspberries by myself in the sun and find secret hideaways and not hurt, not worry, not carry the heavy things. If I could be five years old ... just for a few minutes. Remember what it felt like to be free. That would be something. — Jennifer DeLucy

I can't sing half as well as Claudia Lennear. Hats off to her, but somehow, things happened for me. — Linda Ronstadt

Sometimes I stand in store windows and pretend to be a mannequin. People are like 'hey, that mannequin looks alot like thom yorke' Then I start to sing The Gloaming and lurch toward them and they run off horrified. — Thom Yorke

There's one piece of advice my dad gave me when he dropped me off at college. He said, "You've got the talent. You can sing and play guitar. That doesn't make you any better than anyone else.". — John Denver

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it. — Noah Baumbach

All of the creatures were staring fixedly at Boots. She was standing on the back of her loyal cockroach friend, Temp, smack in the middle of the octagon, singing "The Itsy-Bisty Spider" at the top of her lungs. The green spider, to whom the song principially was directed, seemed to be cringing. Boots was somewhat off-key, but Gregor was pretty sure it was the loudness that was making the arachnid hunch down and contract.
"She has been going on like this for hours," whispered Nerissa. "Days more like it," said Ripred in disgust.
"Next I will sing one for you!" announced Boots, pointing at the bat, who actually flinched. — Suzanne Collins

Sweet Goddess! she thought suddenly. I have never even spoken to him. I know nothing about the man, nothing at all.
What if he tries to get me into some sordid little room and force himself on me, like an animal? How will I fight him off? All alone, not able to cry for help?
No, it will not be like that, it could not be. I would have known if he were that kind of man, and felt repelled. He could not sing and write such beautiful verses, and look so fine if he were not the man I want him to be. Yes, when we meet, it will be as it is in his songs. He will obey, do exactly what I tell him and no more. Oh, I have hoped so long for this. Goddess of Love, let it be beautiful. — Robert Shea

I want to be like him when I'm old - I want to be able to lose myself in worship and sing loud and not care if I'm off-key. — Roberta Gore

I sing to you of many more gods, gods of wind and water, gods of each mineral and the events that created them. I sing to you of the gods of protons, of quarks, of atomic forces binding and holding. I sing to you of the god of the dust that flies off the ice-burned comet, and the god of the spaces in between. I sing to you of the god that twists like a serpent at the center of every sun and is found again coiled within every electron, shared by both and worshiped by each in its own way. I sing to you of the god that collects asteroids together in mockeries of his sister's solar systems, jealous of his elder sibling's power. I sing to you of all these, and many, many more." - Lupa, "The Forgotten Gods of Nature — John Halstead

This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species. — Aldo Leopold

No one knows this, but my dad can sing his face off. — Rob McClure

When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late '40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least. — Dick Van Dyke

This was most alarming, what sort of terrible toil had deranged the poor woman? Would I also have to work day and night till I couldn't stop talking? Perhaps they made her shovel coal for a huge furnace, probably they kept a private crematorium, old people do keep dying off. Maybe they had a chain gang too and we would have to chop stones and sing sea shanties (this would explain why she wore the yachting cap.) — Leonora Carrington

My best guess is that my garbled allusion to Ezra Pound in the following must have come from my parents' reading aloud. The Askari fell off the ostrich In the rain Huge sing Goddamn And what became of the ostrich? Huge sing Goddamn — Richard Dawkins

I want my prayers, and the prayers of my friends, to ricochet off the rock faces of mountains, reverberate down the corridors of shopping malls, sound ocean deeps, water arid deserts, find a foothold in fetid swamps, encounter poets as they search for the accurate word, mingle their fragrance with wildflowers in Alpine Meadows, sing with the looms of Canadian lakes. — Eugene H. Peterson

The Backstreet Boys can sing their asses off. I'm not so sure about those other boy bands. But Backstreet Boys have my ultimate respect. — Elton John

We can all take pictures but not everyone can capture the beauty that's usually hidden in plain view ...
We can all open our mouth to sing but not everyone can melodically touch your soul ...
We can all pick up a pen to write but not everyone can write words in such a way that they leap off of the page for you ...
We can all part our lips to speak but not everyone can speak life into you ...
We can all move our bodies to a beat but not everyone can become one with music, stir emotions and shift energy with dance ...
Point is: WE CAN all do something but Know your gifts, cultivate them and ALWAYS, ALWAYS BE YOURSELF! Then working together becomes effortless. Copies aren't accepted everywhere ... ORIGINALS are eventually required! — Sanjo Jendayi

It had been a long time since I felt the fragrance of summer: the scent of the ocean, a distant train whistle, the touch of a girl's skin, the lemony perfume of her hair, the evening wind, faint glimmers of hope, summer dreams.
But none of these were the way they once had been; they were all somehow off, as if copied with tracing paper that kept slipping out of place."
-from "Hear the Wind Sing — Haruki Murakami

It was not cool to be that fun, bubbly kid, so I would just go off on my own and sing and make up songs, and that's how I think I developed into the kind of artist and writer that I am. — Elle Varner

My vocals are bad, I can't sing, hey man, I wouldn't ask you to do a drum roll if your arm was falling off. — James Hetfield

I don't want anyone to fail, so if you can make money off music even though you can't sing or dance, that's genius. — Prince

I'm thinking of being a professional mourner. How hard can it be? Tear at your hair, sing a dirge or two, take the rest of the week off. — Christopher Moore

Look here!' she said, striking the scar again, with a relentless hand. 'When he grew into the better understanding of what he had done, he saw it, and repented of it! I could sing to him, and talk to him, and show the ardour that I felt in all he did, and attain with labour to such knowledge as most interested him; and I attracted him. When he was freshest and truest, he loved me. Yes, he did! Many a time, when you were put off with a slight word, he has taken Me to his heart! — Charles Dickens

Life isn't filled with perfect harmony. The world is littered with bum notes, off-key moments and tuneless episodes. The trick is to find your own music, to ignore the discord and sing your own tune. — Annie Lyons

I was only a child
when I learned how to fly
I wanted to touch the colors of the bleeding sun and then I fell from the sky
You never saw me again
not even when I returned
you never noticed my broken heart
or how my wings were burned
But if they tell you they saw me
do a swan dive off that bridge
Remember I've always been more afraid to die than I ever was to live
And on the day I disappear
You'll all forget I was ever here
I'll float around from coast to coast And sing about how you made me a ghost.
- Douglas J. Blackman, "The Day I Became a Ghost" — Tiffanie DeBartolo

Nice tackle, babe, he said. And then he kissed me. No doubt about the intention this time. Not the sort of kiss you'd give your cousin, for instance. More like the sort of kiss a man would give a woman when he wanted to rip her clothes off and give her a reason to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. — Janet Evanovich

I admire writers who have the tenacity to write a blog, and I'm told by everyone that it's an important element in remaining visible in the online world. That said, I'm personally turned off by writers' blogs that do nothing but sing their own accomplishments. — David Starkey

You're not going to die. Here's the white-hot truth: if you go bankrupt, you'll still be okay. If you lose the gig, the lover, the house, you'll still be okay. If you sing off-key, get beat by the competition, have your heart shattered, get fired ... it's not going to kill you. Ask anyone who's been through it. — Danielle LaPorte

I am not delicate.
I am skinny dipping at 2am;
I am dancing naked under the full moon and playing in the mud.
I am the reverberating echoes of a curse word ricocheting off the steeply sloping mountain you thought I couldn't climb;
I am bare skin in the deepest depths of winter; I am the song of courage, and the melody of freedom you long to sing.
I am a fearless mother.
I am a passionate lover; a devoted friend.
I am the healer, the witch, the nurturing of your wounds.
I am the heat of a wildfire, the rage of a storm.
I am strong.
Delicate things are pretty-cute, even.
But I am not delicate.
I am wild, fierce and unpredictable.
I am breathtaking.
I am beautiful.
I am sacred. — Brooke Hampton

You boys ain't but two weeks off the farm. Your mama probably gave you your last bath. You think you went through one battle and you're soldiers now? I saw that boy fight for his cause. I saw him sicken and almost die for it. He sang around that fire when he had nothing left to sing. He sang for us. that boy gave everything and then he up and left and I say God bless him. — Kathy Hepinstall

The tears coursed down her cheeks - not freely, however, for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets. A humorous suggestion was made that she sing the notes on her face whereupon she threw up her hands, sank into a chair and went off into a deep vinous sleep. — F Scott Fitzgerald

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo. — Pete Seeger

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. — Walt Whitman

Then he would ask for songs and I would pluck them out for him on a lute I borrowed from my father's wagon. He would even sing from time to time. He had a bright, reckless tenor that was always wandering off, looking for notes in the wrong places. More often than not he stopped and laughed at himself when it happened. He was a good man, and there was no conceit in him. Not long after he joined our troupe, I asked Abenthy what it was like being an arcanist. He gave me a thoughtful look. Have you ever known an arcanist? — Patrick Rothfuss

We can even sing off key, but if it's produced properly it can be a hit. — Grandmaster Flash

Don't sing a song you can't carry off, like some 16-year-old kid singing 'My Way'. That song's not for you. You haven't lived that. — Marc Almond

I didn't really have an act per se - a theatrical performance, as opposed to just: here I am, folks, and you're all supposed to be dead quiet while I sing eight or nine songs, then get off the stage. — Mel Torme

Self-expression is a hallmark of an artist, of art, to get something off one's chest, to sing one's song. So that element is present in all art. It is the key to even standing up and saying, "Hey, listen to me." Self-expression can be based on looking at the world and making observations about it. — George Carlin

Human?' The girl cocked her head the other way. I caught a glimpse of pink gills under her chin. 'My sisters told me stories of humans. They said they sometimes sing to them to lure them underwater.' She grinned, showing off her sharp needle-teeth. 'I've been practicing. Want to hear? — Julie Kagawa

If the birds sing, the nudes are not far off. — John Hawkes

Wade drops down off his bed - a bed handmade by a local boy down the road, a real autistic type who doesn't do well with people but can make a set of fresh-cut logs sing beneath saw and sandpaper. He groans and winces. He's old now, and feels the movements of the morning especially keenly; often he feels like a beater car that takes a while to start up. But this, this has him starting up - regardless of the arthritis squeezing his knees and the popcorn crackle of his back. — Chuck Wendig

Okay, and yeah, he was hot as ten hells and could sing a girl's panties right off of her. — Caisey Quinn

You told me mornings were the best time to break your own heart. So here I am, smoking your brand of cigarettes for the scent. I wonder if you still sing Beatles songs as you make coffee. You said your mother used to sing them to you when you couldn't sleep, nineteen years before we met, twenty before you moved your clothes out of our closet while I was at work. By the way, I hate you for leaving all the photographs on the fridge. Taking them down felt like peeling off new scabs, like slapping a sunburn. I spent so many nights carving your body into pillows, I can promise you nothing feels like sleeping with your arm around me and your breath in my ear. Still, it's comforting to know we sleep under the same moon, even if she's so much older when she gets to me. I like to imagine she's seen you sleeping and wants me to know you're doing well. — Clementine Von Radics

Anyone who says the Backstreet Boys can't sing is crazy. They're probably just reading some highbrow critic who hates anyone the general public embraces. I'm sorry, but those boys sing their butts off. They work hard on their choreography, and on their harmonies. Their tracks are tight and solid. Their songs are musical and memorable. — Tony Orlando

I listen to crazy, robust rock music where they sing their faces off, and soul music, which can be similar. — Adam Lambert

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, there are thousands to prophesy failure, there are thousands to point out to you one by one, the dangers that wait to assail you, But just buckle in, with a bit of a grin, just take off your coat and go to it; just start to sing as you tackle the thing, that cannot be done and you'll do it!! — Edgar A. Guest

Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand, usually, and sing into a tape recorder. — Tom Waits

I have had my ups and downs but wotthehell wotthehell yesterday sceptres and crowns fried oysters and velvet gowns and today i herd with bums but wotthehell wotthehell i wake the world from sleep as i caper and sing and leap when i sing my wild free tune wotthehell wotthehell under the blear eyed moon i am pelted with cast off shoon but wotthehell wotthehell — Don Marquis

Wherever inspiration comes from, it's like I'll hear a melody and chords, almost a rough structure of the whole thing [song]. I'll just hear it and chase what's in my head. The rest comes from jamming with band, improvising, seeing what comes up as well. I'll come up with it off the top of my head, catch it, sing and hum, and if something is missing, just jam, and that's the [songwriting] process. — Chris Wyse

Merely that you start off with ideas buzzing around in your head, and then you try to give them the simpler, more graceful shape, of a feeling that a reader might share. You learn to sing with, not argue at, your possible readers. — Adam Gopnik

Art is central to all our lives, not just the better-off and educated ... I know that from my own story, and from the evidence of every child ever born - they all want to hear and to tell stories, to sing, to make music, to act out little dramas, to paint pictures, to make sculptures. This is born in and we breed it out. And then, when we have bred it out, we say that art is elitist, and at the same time we either fetishize art - the high prices, the jargon, the inaccessibility - or we ignore it. The truth is, artist or not, we are all born on the creative continuum, and that is a heritage and a birthright of all of our lives. — Jeanette Winterson

I look into his eyes and see myself reflected there, smiling up at him. I'm ready to hear all about it. in bass and soprano. In songs of longing and love. In our voices, braided like the strongest cord.

I take off running up the trail, Will on my heels, the whole world waiting for us at the top of the ridge.

I'm ready to fly through the door and back again.
I'm ready to sing to the wind." -Amber — Jaye Robin Brown

Basically, my mother couldn't hold a tune and when I was a baby, a rather tactless baby, I would ask her not to sing ... you can't get to sleep if someone is singing off key nearby. — Vikram Seth

I believe I'll take off my colors for awhile / And just kick back and sing some blues ... — Ray Wylie Hubbard