Sleep Sound Quotes & Sayings

Hearing the sound of your breathing as you sleep,
with the dog at your feet, his head resting
on a shoe, and the clock's ticking
like water dripping in a sink

I know that, even if reincarnation were a fact,
given the inherent cruelty of the world
where beautiful things and people
are blasted apart all the day long,
I would never want to come back, knowing
I could never be this lucky twice ... — Bruce Dawe

In every sound, the hidden silence sleeps. — Dejan Stojanovic

He was drifting on the edge of sleep when the soft sound of Laurie's voice made him stir. "Jonah?"
"Hmm?"
"Me, too."
Jonah blinked and lifted his head. "Huh?"
"I love you, too."
Jonah gave Laurie a drowsy smile. "Yeah?"
Laurie's lips quirked. He dropped a light kiss on Jonah's chin. "Yeah."
"Good." Jonah laid his head on Laurie's chest again, closed his eyes, and hoped he wasn't dreaming. — Piper Vaughn

Hour of Stars (1920) The round silence of night, one note on the stave of the infinite. Ripe with lost poems, I step naked into the street. The blackness riddled by the singing of crickets: sound, that dead will-o'-the-wisp, that musical light perceived by the spirit. A thousand butterfly skeletons sleep within my walls. A wild crowd of young breezes over the river. — Federico Garcia Lorca

This was their way of honoring the dead. The story over, the demands of their own hard, rough lives began to re-assert themselves in their hearts, in their nerves, their blood and appetites. Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept. Odysseus brings not one man to shore with him. Yet he sleeps sound beside Calypso and when he wakes thinks only of Penelope. — Richard Adams

As he slept, his heartbeat returned to slow and steady, lulling her. Before she joined him, she decided that she never wanted to sleep without that sound again. — Kresley Cole

the suit, if there is one, we still lose because of the publicity." I was scarcely hearing a word of it. Horrible images were playing crazily inside my mind. The 911 call, the fact it was aborted, made me see it. I knew what happened. Lori Petersen was exhausted after her ER shift, and her husband had told her he would be in later than usual that night. So she went to bed, perhaps planning to sleep just awhile, until he got home - as I used to do when I was a resident and waiting for Tony to come home from the law library at Georgetown. She woke up at the sound of someone inside the house, perhaps the quiet sound of this person's footsteps coming down the hallway toward the bedroom. Confused, she called out the name of her husband. No one answered. In that instant of dark silence that must have seemed an — Patricia Cornwell

The guilt over his secret was eating him up alive, but hell, the feel of her in his arms threatened to override all of it. This was Maria, the woman he'd fantasized about for almost a decade. In his arms.
He shifted again and tried to pull his hips back, but Maria snuggled tighter against him, hooking one leg over his hip.
Fuck.
Yeah, he had to get out of here. It was still dark outside, so maybe he could salvage a few hours and get some rest in his own bed. She'd just asked him to stay until she fell asleep. Which he'd done. Now it was time to relocate.
Slowly he reached back and lightly grasped her wrist, moving her hand so that she wasn't wrapping her arm around him. Next, he tried to do the same with her leg. Grasping her silky-smooth thigh, he froze when she let out a tiny moan in her sleep. And when she practically ground against him, he groaned.
Couldn't help it. She felt so good the sound just escaped - and woke her up. — Katie Reus

Father's snoring grows to sound increasingly like a vacuum cleaner in heat. — Margaret Halsey

The round silence of night,
one note on the stave
of the infinite.

Ripe with lost poems,
I step naked into the street.
The blackness riddled
by the singing of crickets:
sound,
that dead
will-o'-the-wisp,
that musical light
perceived
by the spirit.

A thousand butterfly skeletons
sleep within my walls.

A wild crowd of young breezes
over the river.

- Hour of Stars (1920) — Federico Garcia Lorca

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. — Dylan Thomas

Wait! Did you sleep with any of my boyfriends?"
"No, I promise."
"Okay, good," she said, relieved.
"I just made out with one."
"You see?" Tabitha said. "She's a whore bag."
"Cum bucket," Mayson nodded in agreement.
"You guys," Donya made a disgusted sound. "Can we save the name calling for later? I want to hear the hoe's story. — L.D. Davis

If you lose your temper, your sound sleep will go, and you will have to use a tranquilizer or sleeping pills? Then gradually, more white hair, wrinkles. — Dalai Lama

my two primary sleep aids, Behemoth and a YouTube recording of a vacuum cleaner, the Hoover WindTunnel. I don't know why I find the sound comforting, Doc, when I was a child in Cairo, my afternoon naps coincided with the rhythmic beating of carpets outside the bedroom, I was used to sleeping to that sound, but no one beat carpets anymore, a shame, though lo and behold, I found that not only did a vacuum cleaner remove dirt more effectively, it summoned Hypnos just as well as a beating, and there were twelve-hour-long recordings of all kinds of household machines online, welcome to America, now go to sleep. Maybe — Rabih Alameddine

You can't find the sound if you just love sleep. — Dennis Brown

My mother had comforted me with tales ever since I was small. Sometimes they helped me peel a problem like an onion, or gave me ideas about what to do; other times, they calmed me so much that I would fall into a soothing sleep. My father used to say that her tales were better than the best medicine. Sighing, I burrowed into my mother's body like a child, knowing that the sound of her voice would be a balm on my heart. — Anita Amirrezvani

Dress loose,take a great deal of exercise ,and be particular about your diet and sleep sound enough,the body has a great effect on the mind. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

IN APRIL Again the woods are odorous, the lark Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark, Where branches bare disclosed the empty day. After long rainy afternoons an hour Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings Them at the windows in a radiant shower, And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings. Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies; And cradled in the branches, hidden deep In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies. — Rainer Maria Rilke

In troubled times, one wishes for a sound sleep more than usual, but on the contrary, realizing its amplified importance, sleep smugly impedes all attempts to woo it. — Pawan Mishra

Love surprises us in unexpected ways, in ways that are beyond our comprehension. It's never the sweet words or the mushy gifts that matter. What matters more are little things like caring about someone and not being able to sleep till you're sure that the one you love is safe and sound. — Sudeep Nagarkar

Mercy didn't get embarrassed easily, but her cheeks flamed now. Because if Riley knew she was in heat - like a freaking wild cat! - then so did the rest of her own pack. "So what, you followed me hoping I'd lower my standards and sleep with a wolf?" She intentionally made "wolf" sound about as appetizing as "reptile."
Riley's jaw tightened under a shadow of stubble a shade darker than the deep chestnut of his hair. "You want to claw at me, kitty-cat? Come on."
Her hands clenched. She really wasn't this much of a bitch. But goddamn Riley had a way of lighting her fuse. — Nalini Singh

You sleep like an angel" Jacks said. The shock of his words in the dark room sent Maddy's stomach leaping into her throat. She didn't even realize she had screamed until it came out of her mouth. "Don't be frightened," Jacks said, sounding worried. "It's just me. I'm sorry, I so didn't mean for that to sound creepy. Let me start over. — Scott Speer

I keep my phone on the floor in my bedroom, and I turn the sound off when I sleep, but I never really turn my phone off. — Meryl Davis

The nature of my compulsion was such that I danced in my sleep. The entire household was sometimes awakened by loud thumping sounds coming from my room. — Gelsey Kirkland

Half an hour of exercise in the morning makes for better interactions all day. Then a sound night of sleep gives me energy to tackle the next day. I am a more active parent, a better spouse, and more engaged in my work when I eat, move, and sleep well. — Tom Rath

Somebody said my name, asked if I was okay. I didn't answer, the sound of the commotion dying around me as the heavy monkey of sleep rested its warm, hairy ass on my eyelids. — David Wong

What is indispensable to inspiration? ... sound sleep and the provocation of a good book or a companion. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

She was in a sound sleep, Jude, dying of anxiety lest she should have caught a chill which might permanently injure her, was glad to hear the regular breathing. He softly went nearer to her, and observed that a warm flush now rosed her hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her hanging hand was no longer cold. Then he stood with his back to the fire regarding her, and saw in her almost a divinity. — Thomas Hardy

All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approach to an idea of creation. We are now so far from the road to truth, that religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative men are esteemed unsound and frivolous. But to a sound judgment, the most abstract truth is the most practical. Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable; as language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know only one thing. when i sleep, i know no fear, no, trouble no bliss. blessing on him who invented sleep. the common coin that purchases all things, the balance that levels shepherd and king, fool and wise man. there is only one bad thing about sound sleep. they say it closely resembles death. — Andrei Tarkovsky

Zac: Now I have a key to your house. I could sneak in tonight and disturb your beauty sleep.
Avery: Eight hours of sleep is crucial to a body that functions at peak efficiency
Zac: A body that functions at peak efficiency? Are you sure you're really sixteen? You sound like Einstein.
Avery: What would you prefer I say? 'I, like, totally need tons of sleep or else I'm, like, a complete zombie — Shana Norris

Goodness gracious! - What's that? It's the clock striking! And here I've been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped me... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady's feet, every night, just the same. And she says, "Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and wake early!" I don't know what I should do if she didn't say that, now. ... — Katherine Mansfield

We won't be able to sleep without the sound of her self-loathing orgasms crying out into the night." - Bats 2015 — Fred Barnett

Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound
Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught;
Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought
As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound
The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound;
For I am weary, and am overwrought
With too much toil, with too much care distraught,
And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek,
O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released
I breathe again uninterrupted breath!
Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek
Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast
Whereof the greater mystery is death! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I used to be someone that needed nine hours of sleep; otherwise, I didn't think I was going to sound good when I sang, and I was very disciplined and anal about my preparation. When you become a parent, there just isn't that time, you know? — Idina Menzel

A baby who cannot relax can be helped to do so by a variety of constant rhythmical stimuli. it will work if the trouble is some kind of general and diffuse irritability or tenseness which is preventing a tired baby relaxing into sleep. The burring sound of a fan or heater works excellently. So does the sound of a car engine. — Penelope Leach

Lie down there on the sofa and see if I can put you to sleep.
He took up his violin fom the corner, and as I stretched myself out he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air - his own no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face and the rise and fall of his bow. Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away upon a soft sea of sound until I found myself in dreamland, with the sweet face of Mary Morstan looking down upon me. — Arthur Conan Doyle

And if I went
back to sleep and slept for forty years and woke up without any teeth to the sound of Melody Radio in
an old people's home, I wouldn't worry that much, because the worst of life, i.e., the rest of it, would
be over. And I wouldn't even have had to kill myself. — Nick Hornby

He wished he understood where they come from: all the terrorists, religious revolutionists
and hate-criminals. Did terrorizing entire communities of people help them sleep sound at
night? Did it make them happy? Or are they just in for the attention? Have they nothing to
lose? Or are they simply bored and spit balling issues that have always been there? Can all
global acts of violence and terror be summed up, as just a whole other level of a mixture of
bad parenting, psychological disorders and unattended anger management issues? Can they
be treated, medically or spiritually? Are we waiting for the birth of another great visionary
like Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ or Prophet Muhammad, who will 'make the world a better
place'? Or are we just too soaked in the idea that religion is a dying concept and spirituality
is overrated? Is it too late? Are we too far behind? He wanted to know. — Thisuri Wanniarachchi

Perhaps my sense of reality is not very highly developed, perhaps I lack a sound and reassuring instinct for the solid facts of our earthly existence; I can't always tell memories from dreams, and often I mistake dreams, coming to life again in colours, smells, sudden associations, with the eerie secret certainty of a past life from which time and space divide me no differently and no better than a light sleep in the early hours. — Annemarie Schwarzenbach

His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every sound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an agony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape form her image. — George Orwell

Last night as your breathing
settled into sleep
what I heard was the half-forgotten sound,
the velvet rush and hiss,
the automatic click
as the record player's arm runs out,
is brushed away
at the record's centre,
the pulse of its subsiding
oddly comforting.
33 1/3 rpm.
The knowledge that when the music ends,
there will not be silence. — John Knowles

The dream world of sleep and the dream world of music are not far apart. I often catch glimpses of one as I pass through a door to the other, like encountering a neighbor in the hallway going into the apartment next to one's own. In the recording studio, I would often lie down to nap and wake up with harmony parts fully formed in my mind, ready to be recorded. I think of music as dreaming in sound. — Linda Ronstadt

Vain empty words / Of honour, glory and immortal fame, / Can these recall the spirit from its place, / Or re-inspire the breathless clay with life? / What tho' your fame with all its thousand trumpets, / Sound o'er the sepulchres, will that awake / The sleeping dead. — George Sewell

There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house. — Anne Tyler

Naw, I say. Mr , can tell you, I don't like it at all. What is it to like? He git up on you, heist your nightgown round your waist, plunge in. Most times I pretend I ain't there. He never know the difference. Never ast me how I feel, nothing. Just do his business, get off, go to sleep.
She start to laugh. Do his business, she say. Do his business. Why, Miss Celie. You make it sound like he going to the toilet on you.
That's what it feel like, I say.
She stop laughing. — Alice Walker

However interesting and lovely my days were, I could get from one day to the next only by passing through a night. I have, it is true, known lovely nights here; nights of sound sleep and good dreams and nights made wakeful by happy thoughts. but I have not always been a good sleeper, and my thoughts at night have sometimes been far from happy. — Wendell Berry

Good organization," said Magnus. "I knew the man who founded it, back in the 1800s. Woolsey Scot. Respectable old werewolf family."
Alec made an ugly sound in the back of his throat. "Did you sleep with him, too?"
Magnus's cat eyes widened. "Alexander! — Cassandra Clare

I honor health as the first muse, and sleep as the condition of health. Sleep benefits mainly by the sound health it produces; incidentally also by dreams, into whose farrago a divine lesson is sometimes slipped. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hail O mighty, fathomless sleep, come on and hug me tight and sweet;
when I whisper those deepest pains, onto your ears mute and keen,
sing for me the sweetest song that would sound the profoundest of life!
Leave me upon your rocking arms, watched by spirits of placid nights!

Goodnight, world, sweet dreams folks, blessed are those who would sleep at peace! — Preeth Nambiar

Riding in the herd, the sound like one constant, endless sigh; some frantic and others calm, some remembering some wrong done to them while others wanted only to sleep, and each struggling with hunger and thirst; some horses pregnant, others desperate to copulate; and all moved forward as one body amid the heat and the dust. — Amanda Coplin

In 1965, my father was just twirling the dial of the radio to find something that would make me go to sleep, and as soon as I heard rock and roll there was no stopping me. It was during the height of Beatlemania and the British invasion, but I gravitated toward the harder, heavier music going on then, you know, the early Rolling Stones, the good Rolling Stones, and Paul Revere and the Raiders, who don't get the credit they deserve for spearheading the American '60s garage sound. — Jello Biafra

Before it is science and career, before it is livelihood, before even it is family or love, freedom is sound sleep and safety to notice the play of morning sun. — Richard Rhodes

I'm not sure which came first, the phone call or the sense of being strangled in my sleep. The choking sensation, as if all breathing on my part must cease, is still vivid in my mind. The feeling engulfs me and I am lying in bed all over again. I feel my throat constricting, intense pressure bearing down on me that I cannot escape. I push away at nothing. I flail and scream, but no sound escapes as my throat is squeezed shut, not by some actual physical hands clasped around my neck but from some nameless danger lurking just as real around me. I gasp for air, seeking somehow to gulp in one long breath that might see me through until I can breathe again. But that breath won't come, and I feel certain that I will perish in an instant, without even a cry on my part. — Mary Ellen Bramwell

Now
I bring full-flavoured wine out of a barrel found
Where seven Ephesian topers slept and never knew
When Alexander's empire passed, they slept so sound. — William Butler Yeats

The dark came down on All Hallows' Eve. We went to sleep to the sound of howling wind and pelting rain, and woke on the Feast of All Saints to whiteness and large soft flakes falling down and down in absolute silence. There is no more perfect stillness than the solitude in the heart of a snowstorm. This is the thin time, when the beloved dead draw near. The world turns inward, and the chilling air grows thick with dreams and mystery. The sky goes from a sharp clear cold where a million stars burn bright and close, to the gray-pink cloud that enfolds the earth with the promise of snow. — Diana Gabaldon

This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd
So many English kings. — William Shakespeare

At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep, For you, GOD, have put my life back together. — Eugene H. Peterson

I don't know what kind of life we might have together," I said, never looking away from her warm brown eyes. "But I know I would protect you with the last scrap of my soul. I know I want to be there for you, to hold you, to dance for you, to hunt with you, to be with you no matter where Fate takes us, because it's the sound of your heartbeat that comforts me when I drift off to sleep, and I know I - I cannot offer you royalty. I'm not sure what I can offer you - but myself. Hopefully that is enough, because I love you, Betia, and I do implore you to be my mate. — Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

She was sleeping a sleep that wasn't her own and the gadgets to which she was connected didn't make a sound. — Paolo Giordano

The sound of his sleep, the snores and sighs and small noices, is company. — Jackie Kay

Rhys released my chin. But as he lowered his hand, I gripped his wrist, feeling the solid strength. "It's a shame," I said, the words nearly gobbled up by the sound of the city music. "That others in Prythian don't know. A shame that you let them think the worst." He took a step back, his wings beating the air like mighty drums. "As long as the people who matter most know the truth, I don't care about the rest. Get some sleep." Then he shot into the sky, and was swallowed by the darkness between the stars. — Sarah J. Maas

Think about something else," Kaitlyn said. "Did you ever find a cow alarm clock around here?"
"No. A what?"
"An alarm clock shaped like a cow. It was Lewis's. It used to go off every morning, this sound like a cowbell and then a voice shouting 'Wake up! Don't sleep your life away!' And then it would moo."
Lydia giggled faintly. "I wish I'd seen that. It sounds-like Lewis."
"Actually, it sounded like a cow." Kaitlyn could hear Lydia snorting softly in the darkness for a while, then silence. She pulled the covers over her head and went to sleep. — L.J.Smith

This is what I say to the most conservative person that's so terrified of gay marriage becoming legal. Just because the state says it's legal, it's not like God's going to let them into Heaven. So you can still sleep sound every night knowing that goal line defense is up at the pearly gates. — Daniel Tosh

I'm not asking for anything beyond your company in sleep. Just let me rest with the sound of your heartbeat beside mine. — Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

When?' said the moon to the stars in the sky
Soon' said the wind that followed them all
Who?' said the cloud that started to cry
Me' said the rider as dry as a bone
How?' said the sun that melted the ground
and 'Why?' said the river that refused to run
and 'Where?' said the thunder without a sound
Here' said the rider and took up his gun
No' said the stars to the moon in the sky
No' said the trees that started to moan
No' said the dust that blunted its eyes
Yes' said the rider as white as a bone
No' said the moon that rose from his sleep
No' said the cry of the dying sun
No' said the planet as it started to weep
Yes' said the rider and laid down his gun — Nick Cave

Several factors besides skill are more significant in professional writers than in most amateurs. One is love of the surface level of language: the sound of it; the taste of it on the tongue; what it can be made to do in virtuosic passages that exist only for their own sake, like cadenzas in baroque concerti. Writers in love with their tools are not unlike surgeons obsessed with their scalpels, or Arctic sled racers who sleep among their dogs even when they don't have to. — Alice Weaver Flaherty

That sound of settling into the sheets and the covers has to be one of the best things in the world. Sleep is a mercy. You can feel it coming on, like being swept up in something. — Marilynne Robinson

In her sleep?" I couldn't believe it. "How did she say it? I mean, did she sound angry?"
He frowned. "I don't know how she said it."
"Come on try to remember. Was it sad like this ... Owen? Or was it kind of sweet like this ... Ownen? Or was it- — Suzanne Selfors

Money can help you to get medicines but not health. Money can help you to get soft pillows, but not sound sleep. Money can help you to get material comforts, but not eternal bliss. Money can help you to get ornaments, but not beauty. Money will help you to get an electric earphone, but not natural hearing. Attain the supreme wealth, wisdom; you will have everything. — Sivananda

I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasnt born for city life and that I was glad of it. It's nice to be eating ice-cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o'clock at night once in a while; but as a regular thing I'd rather be in east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and the wind was blowing the firs across the brook. — L.M. Montgomery

Gospel ministers should not only be like dials on watches, or mile-stones upon the road, but like clocks and larums, to sound the alarm to sinners. Aaron wore bells as well as pomegranates, and the prophets were commanded to lift up their voice like a trumpet. A sleeping sentinel may be the loss of the city. — Joseph Hall

Oh, Jesus," he said, wheezing with the effort it took to control
himself. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "You little
innocent. I'm fluent in French, but it isn't my first language." It
was plain by the mortified expression in those green eyes that she
didn't understand, so he explained. "Baby , if I can still think
clearly enough to speak French, then I'm not totally involved in
what I'm doing. It may sound pretty , but it doesn't mean
any thing. Men are different from women; the more excited we are,
the more like cavemen we sound. I could barely speak English with
you, much less French. As I remember, my vocabulary
deteriorated to a few short, explicit words, 'fuck' being the most
prominent."
To his amazement, she blushed, and he smiled at this further
evidence of her charming prudery. "Go to sleep," he said gently.
"Lindsey didn't even rate a replay. — Linda Howard

Of all the various unpleasant ways to be aroused from a sound sleep, one of the worst is the noise of a dragon and a unicorn playing tag. Myth Conceptions by Robert Asprin — Robert Asprin

How can such deep-imprinted images sleep in us at times, till a word, a sound, awake them? — Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

The vibrations he felt in his sleep had nothing to do with his soul easing out of his body as he dreamily thought; they came solely from the weight and motion of the freight train rolling north to deliver fuel, furniture and other items having no relevance to Elijah's life or his dreaming. On the metal rail his arm itched like a nose with a feeling that something bad was about to happen. In another life the sound of the train would have been reminiscent of certain songs by Muddy Waters or even Bruce Springsteen but not in this one. In this life the sound stabbed viciously against the night exactly like a human being demonstrating flawless disrespect for the life of another human being.
from short story ELIJAH'S SKIN — Aberjhani

Today begins my walk with you. Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. When you sleep, I will sleep. When you rise, I will rise. I will pass my days within the sound of your voice, and my nights within the reach of your hand. And none shall come between us. - Manth Vow — William Nicholson

Sometimes you can hear the wire, hear it reaching out across the miles; whining with its own weight, crying from the cold, panting at the distance, humming with the phantom sounds of someone else's conversation. You cannot always hear it - only sometimes; when the night is deep and the room is dark and the sound of the phone's ringing has come slicing through uneasy sleep. — David Bradley

The unluckiest of the Caribbean's sick came, in search of cures: a poor woman who, since childhood, had been counting the beats of her heart so long that she had run out of numbers to count; a Jamaican who, because of the tormenting sound the stars made, never slept; a sleepwalker who rose from bed at night, and in sleep undid all the things he had done in waking; and many other ailments too, less serious in nature. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Sadness clings to you like a cat unwilling to release its claws, so you embrace it and stroke it until it is content to sleep in your heart, until awakened by a sound, a smell, or a memory...but it never leaves you. — D.S. Mixell

I'm here, Papa," she whispered, saying the words she had longed to say for her entire life. "I'm here, and I'm never going to leave you again."
He made a sound of contentment and closed his eyes. Just as Evie thought he had fallen asleep, he murmured, "Where shall we walk first today, lovey? The biscuit baker, I s'pose..."
Realizing that he imagined this was one of her long-ago childhood visits, Evie replied softly, "Oh, yes." Hastily she knuckled away the excess moisture from her eyes. "I want an iced bun... and a cone of broken biscuits... and then I want to come back here and play dice with you."
A rusty chuckle came from his ravaged throat, and he coughed a little. "Let Papa take forty winks before we leaves... there's a good girl..."
"Yes, sleep," Evie murmured, turning the cloth over on his forehead. "I can wait, Papa. — Lisa Kleypas

No! No! No! Heck No!" Green and Ruxs jumped back from each other. Green looked down the hall at a bed-rumpled, very agitated Curtis. "Go in your room for heaven's sake! Geez. I don't want to hear that crap!" Curtis yelled, holding his hands over his ears like a five-year-old. "You're supposed to be asleep." Ruxs tried to sound stern but was failing miserably since he couldn't stop his laughter. "I was sleep!" Curtis yelled back. "But I was awoken by the sound of two Olympians crashing down the hall!" "We're, — A.E. Via

Thoroughly ruffled, Rachel turned her back on the source of her annoyance and started for the door. She could feel his gaze on her, and the notion that he was watching her made her suddenly self-conscious. In her teetering heels, she could not help but sway.
Just as she reached the door, he made an odd sound that caused her to glance back at him, startled.
"Rachel," he said in what was scarcely more than a husky whisper, while his eyes drilled into hers, "don't sleep with him. Sleep with me instead."
Her breath caught for a moment as the words coiled around her like a seductive snake. Only by forcing herself to keep walking was she able to escape. — Karen Robards

Can you imagine how lonely she must have felt when she received that phone call? Your lover has just died, your companion has abandoned you, but don't you dare make an inappropriate sound, because your family is around. No one to touch you the way he did, no one to understand you, no one to hug you to sleep, but don't dare allow your face to show a glint of grief. The cutting pain of feeling alone amid loved ones. — Rabih Alameddine

But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep. — Charles Dickens

The half-moon westers low, my love,
And the wind brings up the rain;
And wide apart lie we, my love,
And seas between the twain.
I know not if it rains, my love,
In the land where you do lie;
And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,
You know no more than I. — A.E. Housman

I don't sleep all that much, but when I do, it's sound. — Gene Simmons

Even when they're asleep they're not asleep. Earthborn animals do this thing, inside their brains-a sort of mad firing-off of synapses, controlled insanity. While they're asleep. The part of their brain that records sight or sound, it's firing off every hour or two while they sleep; even when all the sights and sounds are complete random nonsense, their brains just keep on trying to assemble it into something sensible. They try to make stories out of it. It's complete random nonsense with no possible correlation to the real world, and yet they turn it into these crazy stories. And then they forget them. All that work, coming up with these stories, and when they wake up they forget almost all of them. But when they do remember, then they try to make stories about those crazy stories, trying to fit them into their real lives. — Orson Scott Card

Silence
THERE is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave - under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hush'd - no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox or wild hyaena calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan -
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. — Thomas Hood

O brother, the gods were good to you.
Sleep, and be glad while the world
endures.
Be well content as the years wear
through;
Give thanks for life, and the loves and
lures;
Give thanks for life, O brother, and
death,
For the sweet last sound of her feet, her
breath,
For gifts she gave you, gracious and
few,Tears and kisses, that lady of yours. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sometimes rebuffing him was a difficult, but this evening Margo whispered something about the prohibition on sex during the Yom Kippur holiday--as if they were a family of rabbis!--and he gave in and turned on his side. Rejected and repelled, he would fall into his nighttime sleep; in just a few moments she would hear that sound she hated, the heavy breathing that would rise to his nostrils and turn into a saw-like din, and Margo would wonder whether to shake him or let him be. If she awaken him, there was a chance he might start probing all over again; if she let him snore, he would disrupt her thinking, and she would not be able to give herself over to the brilliant idea she had come up with while staring in the mirror. — Anat Talshir

We want our sound to go into the soul of the audience, and see if it can awaken some little thing in their minds ... 'Cause there are so many sleeping people. — Jimi Hendrix

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

The progress of Catherine's unhappiness from the events of the evening was as follows. It appeared first in a general dissatisfaction with everybody about her, while she remained in the rooms, which speedily brought on considerable weariness and a violent desire to go home. This, on arriving in Pulteney Street, took the direction of extraordinary hunger, and when that was appeased, changed into an earnest longing to be in bed; such was the extreme point of her distress; for when there she immediately fell into a sound sleep which lasted nine hours, and from which she awoke perfectly revived, in excellent spirits, with fresh hopes and fresh schemes. — Jane Austen

I was having trouble sleeping. This is not an uncommon thing, but because it eluded me so often, I had a passion for sleep. I had rituals that I rendered unto sleep, as though serving a goddess. White noise was key to the equation. I had a fan in the bedroom that rivaled a freight train in sound. I scented the sheets with sunflower spray, and kept an electric blanket on low for warmth. Surely sleep would be enticed. — Phibby Venable

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy - if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says: — Mark Twain

He went on talking to me in the darkness, while I retraced the steps of my past with the sound of his voice as a charm with which to open the doors of the years and months and finally of my days, wondering where I could have run into this man. But I found nothing. No answer. You can lose your way groping among the shadows of the past. It's frightening how many people and things there are in a man's past that have stopped moving. The living people we've lost in the crypts of time sleep so soundly side by side with the dead that the same darkness envelops them all. As we grow older, we no longer know whom to awaken, the living or the dead. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

It was spring, not winter or autumn, Paul thought with some lingering confusion. He listened to the layered murmur of wind against leaves, familiarly and gently disorienting as a terrestrial sound track, reminding people of their own lives, then opened his MacBook - sideways, like a hardcover book - and looked at the internet, lying on his side, with his right ear pressed into his pillow, as if, unable to return to sleep, at least in position to hear what, in his absence, might be happening there. — Tao Lin

Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal; Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

This work is the link between my Dear Natalie piece and my upcoming Agatha work. It bridges that lapse in time and shows how my thinking has changed. It shows me telling a story through the surreal and trying to use thought fragments alone to show a tortured existence. This piece was written after the Dear Natalies and before the Agatha mystery, but it is meant to be read after you've already read both.
This book is a bridge between two books, which would make it a bridge between two bridges. That's strange, but I've seen stranger. Like the time I woke up in a fish tank, having morphed into a goldfish during my sleep. I still fear the sound of a flushing toilet, and since then I refuse to let myself fall asleep while wearing flippers.
This book is 3,088 words of pure nonsense, strung together like pearls hurled at bacon. Yum! — Jarod Kintz