Quotes & Sayings About Sound

I have never seen a game's graphics look so sharp and clean. The sound design for the game is also unique on the Xbox. The memory on this system allowed us to provide the user with 5.1 Dolby surround sound for home theatre owners. — Don Bluth

I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them. — Margaret E. Knight

If you make it sound too much like a synth, it will just sound like a guitar part played on a synth. — Daisy Berkowitz

Her father said, "You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes." "Even at a time like this?" Meg asked. The call from Calvin, the sound of her husband's voice, had nearly broken her control. "Especially at a time like this," her mother said gently. — Madeleine L'Engle

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
News from the humming city comes to it
It sound of funeral or of marriage bells. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

The sound of darkness was certainly intricately linked to the sense of being alone but unrelated to this was the sound of the palpitations of men and women experiencing the sense of utter solitude. There was no doubt about it. This was a sound audible only on evenings such as this. — Shusaku Endo

I think strong rhetoric and strong action are two separate things. Anyone can use tough words. Anyone can go over the top and say things that sound strong. But sounding strong is not enough. You have to know exactly how you're going to do it. And if you look at some of the policies he's talked about, they would not make America stronger. — Marco Rubio

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

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

He held me against his body and his upper arm was close to my face, so I turned and bit him. He was so startled he actually released me and I tried to jab him with the knife, but he gripped my wrist.

"Did you bite me?" he asked as he stared at my teeth marks on his bicep.

"Not hard enough. There isn't even blood," I said. Luca's shoulders twitched once, then again. He was fighting laughter. Not the effect I'd intended when I bit him but I had to admit I loved the sound of his deep chuckle.

"I think you've done enough damage for one day," he said. — Cora Reilly

Professor Ramachandran believes this synesthetic connection between our hearing and seeing senses was an important first step towards the creation of words in early humans. According to this theory, our ancestors would have begun to talk by using sounds that evoked the object they wanted to describe. For example, words referring to something small often involve making a synesthetic small i sound with the lips and a narrowing of the vocal tracts: Little, teeny, petite, whereas the opposite is true of words denoting something large or enormous. If the theory is right, then language emerged from the vast array of synesthetic connections in the human brain. — Daniel Tammet

You can be very religious and invoke the name of God and be able to quote lots of verses and be well versed in complicated theological systems and yet not be a person who sees. It's one thing to sing about God and recite quotes about God and invoke God's name; it's another be aware of the presence in every taste, touch, sound, and embrace.
With Jesus, what we see again and again is that it's never just a person, or just a meal, or just an event, because there's always more going on just below the surface. — Rob Bell

As hard as I try to sound tough and dark, I still sound cute. — Jenny Lewis

It was beautiful, and that is a word I would not need to explain to the girls from back home, and I do not need to explain to you, because now we are all speaking the same language. The waves still smashed against the beach, furious and irresistible. But me, I watched all of those children smiling and dancing and splashing one another in salt water and bright sunlight, and I laughed and laughed and laughed until the sound of the sea was drowned. — Chris Cleave

Bad news is, they've figured out I'm alive. Worse news, I can't be sure about them. Their decomposing stench burns my throat. They don't sound very big. Maybe they're pygmy zombies. — A.G. Howard

It was indeed not very sound. However, those who had taken it, were in a fairer way of recovery than the others at the end of the fortnight, which was the length of time all these different courses were continued, except the oranges. — James Lind

A turtle should take fright at the sound of a boiling pot. — Carol Kendall

I love you," I said, gripping the back of her neck and bringing her mouth to mine. My hand trailed down her side, naked and smooth and covered in goose bumps.
"We're really doing this, aren't we?" she asked, pulling back just enough to meet my eyes.
"We're really doing this."
"Officially."
"A hundred percent. Dinners, dates, introducing you as my girlfriend. The whole thing."
"Think I like the sound of that," she said, her cheeks pink. — Christina Lauren

In and out' Ronan repeated. It didn't sound like a dream he'd ever had.
'Like a motherfucking thief. — Maggie Stiefvater

I sat up so fast I practically broke the sound barrier, but it was Cal standing in my doorway, not Archer. I heaved a huge sigh, one of relief, and not even a little bit of disappointment.
Of course, once I'd wrapped my mind around the fact that it was Cal and not Archer standing in my bedroom, it dawned on me that Cal was standing in my bedroom. — Rachel Hawkins

If you listen to The Browns, it's a very pretty sound. It was sibling harmony, a sound that was very pleasing. I've never heard anybody that could come close to that particular sound. It couldn't be imitated. — Jim Ed Brown

Those stories were the sound track of my summer with you. — Sarah Addison Allen

Once more their weird laughter of the loons comes to my ear, the distance lends it a musical, melancholy sound. For a dangerous ledge off the lighthouse island floats in on the still air the gentle trolling of a warning bell as it swings on the rocking buoy; it might be tolling for the passing of summer and sweet weather with that persistent, pensive chime. — Celia Thaxter

Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this. — Richard P. Feynman

Dammit!" "What?" Gonzo sounds panicked. "We're out of gas." "You're Shithenging me." "I Shithenge you not. — Libba Bray

For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?" — Ryan Adams

I think people are complacent about sound, because we're so limited by the textures and timbres we hear in music, but in our everyday life we hear the most incredible things. — Herbert

But the idea of taking things and mixing them together is what I do in my music. I take hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance, funk and soul and mix it all together to get my own sound. — Jennifer Lopez

I know there is a moment when sound slips down the torn lining of itself into silence, is carried unheard and secret in its own pocket. But the crimson birds could find no such escape, no means of slipping beyond themselves between the cracks of color and song to a white undiscovered silence. — Janet Frame

It is possible to experience true divine wonders in your conversion but never to be taught a true description of what your experience is. Then someone starts to describe your experience in words you have never heard, and in ways you have never understood, and suddenly the strange words all sound exactly right. — John Piper

I'm like a ventriloquist chasing his own voice. I can whisper and shout at the same time, and this is the closest approximation I have to a description of love. I would offer you something to drink, but I'm not in the kitchen, even though it may sound like I am. — Jarod Kintz

I don't think you're weak," Jared said. "I want to guard you because you are important to me. Because you are - God, this is going to sound so stupid, I can never think of a way to say it - you are precious. I can never think of how to describe the value you have to me, because all the words for value suggest that you belong to me, and you don't. — Sarah Rees Brennan

[When asked what he wants for his tombstone epitaph]
Since I'm an atheist, and have no belief whatsoever in life after death, I couldn't care less
it's not like it'll have any impact on me, since by definition I will be completely extinguished. I guess if someone twisted my arm and forced me to provide an epitaph, it would be 'Don't forget.' Sound advice ... — Richard Bartle

One could plausibly argue that it is for quite sound reasons that the whole capacity for sexual ecstasy is inaccessible to most people - given that sexuality is something, like nuclear energy, which may prove amenable to domestication through scruple, but then again may not. — Susan Sontag

The typewriter is neat and compact and sturdy and blue, just the right machine to pound out a missive of love. When you strike the keys it's a sound that hasn't been heard in the qorld world for thirty years (we are so far away from a time when typewriters won world wars). When you strike the keys they make a sound like a pistol shot, a sound so definite and sure you feel like a genius, or an orayor orator, or a beat poet. When you strike the keys you just want to keep on fucking writing. You have to wrestle with the thing, like I am doing now, steer it like an old manual car, keep the words together and right and on the page, but the blood and muscle of a typewriter, it is a beautiful thing. — Yvette Walker

Your stepfather? I'd like to meet him."
Oh no ... why?
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
Christian unlocks the door, his mouth in a grim line.
"Are you ashamed of me?"
"No!" It's my turn to sound exasperated. "Introduce you to my dad as what? 'This is the man who deflowered me and wants to start a BDSM relationship'. You're not wearing running shoes. — E.L. James

The one thing I cannot stand is when I do interviews, when I interview people, and I listen to the tapes and I hear myself talking and sort of stumble and stammer, or I hear the horrible sound of my own voice, or God forbid I see myself on video, there is that complete revulsion with seeing how I occur in the world. — Chuck Palahniuk

As I reject the old time beliefs, it is not a matter of countering belief with belief, rather I can challenge the efficacy of old beliefs with sound arguments. We believe in nature and that human progress depends on the domination of man over nature. There is no conscious power behind it. This is our philosophy. — Bhagat Singh

Sound is one of the best most powerful tools. All the ancient traditions confirm that in the beginning was the word. Sound sort of predates form. — MC Yogi

I was in love with the sound of the slamming door, it sounded the way i felt, like damn you to hell! and i hate what you're doing to me! and Life sucks. — Ellen Wittlinger

And a naked woman was waiting for him on it. Oh, crap. He'd forgotten all about Ellen, but Marcus's winery manager obviously hadn't forgotten about him. If things had gone differently tonight - way differently - he knew he would have been psyched to find her already stripped down and ready for him. Only, after meeting Chloe, Chase was about as unpsyched by Ellen's naked presence in the house as he could be. Ellen's eyes were wide as she looked between him and Chloe. Clearly, surprise had her frozen in place on the bed as it took her a minute to remove her iPod headphones. Obviously, the music had masked the sound of Chase and Chloe's conversation in the living room, and Ellen had had no idea that Chase wouldn't be walking through the bedroom door alone. — Bella Andre

If I had to speak in front of a Korean audience, I would be hard pressed to sound other than a little girl. — An Na

Yes, I've listened to just a few audiobooks - but hope to listen to more. I've wanted to investigate how my own books sound in this format and find the experience of listening, and not reading, quite fascinating. — Joyce Carol Oates

Given the choice between four perfectly acceptable movies, they invariably opt for a walk through the Picasso museum or a tour of the cathedral, saying, "I didn't come all the way to Paris so I can sit in the dark." They make it sound so bad. "Yes," I say, "but this is the French dark. It's ... darker than the dark we have back home. — David Sedaris

It doesn't sound like there was time for the word to be there. On the other hand, I didn't intentionally make an inane statement ... certainly the 'a' was intended, because that's the only way the statement makes any sense. — Neil Armstrong

I say the sentences again and again in my head until they sound right. — Martin Amis

Sound creates an intimate effect: the sensation to feel the place. It makes the viewer enter. You have the liberty to hear what you want. — Bruno Dumont

Thank You"
she whispered soft
like it may
blow away
with anything stronger
than a breathe,
"for fixing me."
"You,"
I sputtered out
like the first sound
of morning,
"were never
broken. — Tyler Knott Gregson

To the Muses
Whether on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceas'd;
Whether in Heav'n ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air,
Where the melodious winds have birth;
Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea
Wand'ring in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!
How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move!
The sound is forc'd, the notes are few! — William Blake

I don't want to be the person who gasps in fear whenever she hears the sound of a doorbell or a phone. I just want to lose myself in these hills, in the river winding west to the city of bridges. — Mira Bartok

I don't know whether you know this, but there are people in the world with a very odd gift, one that looks like crossed wires. These people firmly believe that every number has a color, and every sound a shape..." pg 273 — Elizabeth Knox

I find that using repetitious sound patterns such as mantra (which literally means "place to rest the mind") is very helpful. By breathing deeply and repeating the phrase In this moment I reclaim my JOY or In this moment I am perfect, whole and beautiful, or I am an innocent and peaceful child of the universe, I shift back into the consciousness of my right mind. — Jill Bolte Taylor

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

My father always said patience dampened the ground at your feet so that your feet trod on it without a sound, and people never heard you as you passed on your way to the grave, and you weren't bothered as much by people then as you would be if you went stamping on the hard ground like a self-important horse, drawing attention to yourself. — Gwyn Thomas

He rubbed his thumb over the smoothness of her cheek, thinking she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known. "You don't think you're worth killing for?"
Her laugh was brittle. "Hardly."
For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing and the wind gusting through the trees. And then he said, "I disagree."
She stared up at him, trembling, her eyes filled with the questions she couldn't put into words.
"I mean it," he rasped. "I would kill for you. Easily. Without remorse. Again and again. — Rhyannon Byrd

Louise was an urbanite, she preferred the gut-thrilling sound of an emergency siren slicing through the night to the noise of country birds at dawn. Pub brawls, rackety roadworks, mugged tourists, the badlands on a Saturday night - they all made sense, they were all part of the huge, dirty, torn social fabric. There was a war raging out there in the city and she was part of the fight, but the countryside unsettled her because she didn't know who the enemy was. She had always preferred North and South to Wuthering Heights. All that demented running around the moors, identifying yourself with the scenery, not a good role model for a woman. — Kate Atkinson

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

I hate the natural sound of the trumpet, but I think I'm naturally set up to be a trumpet player. I know that sounds weird. But pretty much anytime I play a note, I'm uncomfortable in a general sense. — Christian Scott

A powerful dragon crying its eyes out under the moon in a deserted valley is a sight and a sound hardly to be imagined. — C.S. Lewis

Before the invention of photography, significant moments in the flow of our lives would be like rocks placed in a stream: impediments that demonstrated but didn't diminish the volume of the flow and around which accrued the debris of memory, rich in sight, smell, taste, and sound. No snapshot can do what the attractive mnemonic impediment can: when we outsource that work to the camera, our ability to remember is diminished and what memories we have are impoverished. — Sally Mann

The notion of representing a sound by a graphic symbol is itself so stupefying a leap of the imagination that what is remarkable is not so much that it happened relatively late in human history, but that it happened at all. — Jack Goody

Indian dancing-girls, clothed in rose-coloured gauze, looped up with gold and silver, danced airily, but with perfect modesty, to the sound of viols and the clanging of tambourines. — Jules Verne

I remember as a very young child being warned that libraries and bookstores were quiet places where noise wasn't allowed. Here was yet another thing the adults had gotten wrong, for these book houses pulsed with sounds; they just weren't noisy. The books hummed. The collective noise they made was like riding on a large boat where the motor's steady thrum and tickle vibrated below one's sneakers, ignorable until you listened, then omnipresent and relentless, the sound that carried you forward. Each book brimmed with noises it wanted to make inside your head the moment you opened it; only the shut covers prevented it from shouting ideas, impulses, proverbs, and plots into that sterile silence. — Wendy Welch

Were you going to tell me you usually kiss your one-night trollops in private?
He laughed. The free-ringing sound held a spark of pure pleasure, unforced and rich with surprise. — Janny Wurts

The juvenile adage Never kiss and tell had a sound moral instinct behind it. — Alexander McCall Smith

I'm not good enough to be playin' much acoustic guitar onstage. Man, you gotta get so right; I mean, the tones, the feel, the sound. Plus, acoustic blues guitar is just that much harder on the fingers. — Johnny Winter

That, Kuwei, is the sound that death makes when she comes calling. — Leigh Bardugo

Thank you," she whispered, sending up a quick prayer for his continued recovery.
"You're welcome," Marcus murmured.
Honoria let out a little shriek of surprise, jumping back nearly a foot.
"Sorry," he said, but he was laughing.
It was quite the loveliest sound Honoria had ever heard.
"I wasn't thanking you," she said pertly.
"I know." He smiled — Julia Quinn

The beauty of the flute was in its simplicity, in its resemblance to the human voice. It always sounded clear. It sounded alone. The piano, on the other hand, was a network of parts - a ship, with its strings like rigging, its case a hull, its lifted lid a sail. Kestrel always thought that the piano didn't sound like a single instrument but a twinned one, with its low and high halves merging together or pulling apart. — Marie Rutkoski

I am. You sound hungover."
"It's Canada Day."
"So?"
"So, I'm in Canada."
"Why?"
"Because it's Canada Day! Come on, Garrett!"
Zane snorted. — Abigail Roux

Lastly, they must be men of honest report, whose life and sound conversation are by their deeds perfectly tried and sufficiently witnessed of unto the people: and finally, they must be such as bear authority, and not be despised as rascal and vile knaves. — Heinrich Bullinger

The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion. — Julian Baggini

World is sensation. We drift in an ocean of sensory stimuli: motion, color, texture, shape, heat, cold, natural symphonies of sound, an infinite number of scents, tastes beyond the human ability to catalogue. Nothing but sensation endures. Living things all die. Great cities do not last. — Dean Koontz

She slapped his shoulder. "You... you go down to breakfast, Gram. I'll be there as soon as I shower and dress."
"Have you been exercising? You sound out of breath."
Creighton buried his face in a pillow, his body shaking with laughter.
Gram knocked on the door. "Do you have a man in there with you?"
"No, Gram..."
He pushed himself off the pillow and sat, his large hands sweeping dark hair away from his face. "Aye, she bloody well does."
Clapping sounded from the other side of the door followed by Gram's bellowing "Born to be Wild. — Vonnie Davis

'A sound Conservative government,' said Taper, musingly. 'I understand: Tory men and Whig measures.' — Benjamin Disraeli

The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the treas and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

The walls are cracked and water runs upon them within threads without sound, black and glistening as blood. — Ayn Rand

The true musician is attuned to a fairer harmony than that of the lyre ... for he truly has in his own life a harmony of words and deeds arranged in the Dorian mode. Such a one makes me joyous with the sound of his voice, so eager am I in drinking in his words. — Plato

sound of it. Everything was more echoey here, including the falls, which were somewhere off to the side. In front of them, in the camera's light, Carter could see the edge of a pond or a pool of some kind. It was impossible to know how big it was, but it was feeding the stream they'd followed inside. — Jeff Probst

Where are you going?" Millie whispered, although why she was whispering was a bit of a mystery since the sound of yelling, along with a lot of cursing, was flowing into the house. "I'm not just going to sit here while everyone else is fighting my battle." She made it all the way to the door, crawling on her stomach, no less, before she was forced to stop when she encountered a pair of shoes. They were nice shoes, a little dusty, and unfortunately, they belonged to none other than Bram. "You weren't trying to sneak out to help, were you?" he asked, squatting down next to her. "I might have been." "There's no need. Silas has been secured." Lucetta frowned. "He came down here on his own?" Holding out a hand, Bram helped her to her feet before he smiled. "Apparently, yes. I imagine those women he hired weren't too keen to travel the country with him. Aiding and abetting men on the run usually results in a stint behind bars, and they must have decided he wasn't worth that." "I — Jen Turano

I threw my son, Brandon, a rave for his birthday and I fully set it up like a crazy rave with lights and sound, me and my partner DJ'd - I got Mix Master Mike from the Beastie Boys to come DJ for a bit. — Tommy Lee

The sound of your voice makes the chaos around me vanish. The smell of your hair calms my soul. The sight of your smile tames the wolf inside of me, and touching your skin ... " He glanced at our joined hands. "Touching your skin makes the broken parts of me whole." - Aren from Hunter's Moon — Lisa Kessler

I know this'll sound obnoxious, but acting was very much an accident for me. I didn't have, like, posters of Marlon Brando in my bedroom when I was growing up. — Michael Shannon

Most days it feels like I am watching a movie
where the sound isn't in sync,
the speed is all wrong.
Either I'm moving too quickly
and the world is dripping along,
or the world is moving too quickly, cosmic,
and I'm oozing like a slug
barely able to pull my own weight.
It's best if I keep moving
because if I stopped and stood still
people would see me shaking. — Samantha Schutz

With the words, a lot of things start with questions. Some word kind of piques my interest, and I love the way it sounds, but I really don't know what it means. And I honestly don't care for a while. — Andrew Bird

We cannot, therefore, blame the courts, public schools, media, or government for our own theological unfaithfulness. We are the ones - the prophets and priests - who have contributed to this "Ichabod," this departure of God's glory in our time. Only by returning to sound, effective God-centered preaching and teaching can we restore the confidence not only of Christians themselves in God's greatness, but of an unbelieving world that is more apathetic toward our benign, helpless, happy deity than hostile. — Michael S. Horton

Common sense is, of all kinds, the most uncommon. It implies good judgment, sound discretion, and true and practical wisdom applied to common life. — Tryon Edwards

The only really sound marriages are those based on mutual respect. — Billy Graham

You get to bring your own sound system when you play an arena, all the lights and visual stuff, which I think is really cool. There's something about those old arenas, where it feels larger than life. — Dan Auerbach

I hate how all the hip hop bands of today will put crazy sound effects into their songs. You know what I mean, like a police or ambulance siren in a tune? Because I could own the CD, I could listen to it 50 gamillion times in my car - I still fall for it every time. — Doug Benson

It always sounds more right to me when it's detuned. When it's right in tune, it's like there's something slightly off. But at the end of the day, it's all about frequencies and what they do to you. That's the real core. — Aphex Twin

...I'm momentarily transfixed, torn between curiosity and fear. I can pull it up the gently sloping mud bank, but then what? Already thought is lagging behind events, as the blotchy brown mass slides up wet mud toward me, its amorphous margins flowing into the craters left by retreating feet. In the center of the yard-wide disc is a raised turret where two eyes open and close, flashing black. And it's bellowing. A loud rhythmic sound that is at first inexplicable until I realize that those blinking eyes are its spiracles, now sucking in air instead of water, which it is pumping out via gill slits on its underside. And all the while it brandishes that blade, stabbing the air like a scorpion... — Jeremy Wade

A thousand trills and quivering sounds In airy circles o'er us fly, Till, wafted by a gentle breeze, They faint and languish by degrees, And at a distance die. — Joseph Addison

It is impossible to attain proper physical condition without being sound both mentally and morally. — John Wooden

Your mallet or your stick goes through the instrument, the sound goes out and then wherever the sound goes nobody knows, you know. — Evelyn Glennie

September is a sweep of dusky, purple asters, a sumac branch swinging a fringe of scarlet leaves, and the bittersweet scene of wild grapes when I walk down the lane to the mailbox. September is a golden month of mellow sunlight and still clear days ... Small creatures in the grass, as if realizing their days are numbered, cram the night air with sound. Everywhere goldenrod is full out. — Jean Hersey

Politics is the enemy of a sound economic entity, he mused. New laws, harsher tax rates, meddling . . . and now this. — Philip K. Dick

The sound of natural things was wonderful to us. In the middle of all the suffering, it seemed pure, untouched. — Diet Eman

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. — William Shakespeare

I started the first drafts of the book during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't thinking at all about kids at the time. But I was thinking. A lot. About everything. I wish I could capture that head-space again; everything meant something to me in college. Every leaf, every sound, every lecture, every textbook. It's like I was on drugs, 24/7. I am glad I was able to pair that ceaseless pondering with plenty of time to write. What came of that time was the first draft of the novel, a lengthy, unnecessarily angst-driven pile of crap. Years later, with Zoloft, I approached the novel with a more level head, and came away with a much, much better novel. My advice to writers, I suppose, is write your novel when you feel like shit; edit when you feel great. — Caleb J. Ross

I stand up, trying to shake myself mentally. Get over him, Maggie, I instruct myself. I need to stop. I really do. I want to. I'm going to. I sound like a drug addict. Perhaps there's a twelve-step program for me. Priest Lovers Anonymous. — Kristan Higgins