Undertones Quotes & Sayings

I suppose everything I do has sexual undertones, but I don't set out to make everything about sex. My clothes are more about sensuality. What I do is dress and beautify the body. My feeling is, if you have something beautiful, then show it. — Tom Ford

Her constant orders for beheading are shocking to those modern critics of children's literature who feel that juvenile fiction should be free of all violence and especially violence with Freudian undertones. Even the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, so singularly free of the horrors to be found in Grimm and Andersen, contain many scenes of decapitation. As far as I know, there have been no empirical studies of how children react to such scenes and what harm if any is done to their psyche. My guess is that the normal child finds it all very amusing and is not damaged in the least, but that books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz should not be allowed to circulate indiscriminately among adults who are undergoing analysis. — Martin Gardner

I would go to cosmetics counters and buy two or three foundations and powders, and then go home and mix them before I came up with something suitable for my undertones. — Iman

The writer must be able to revel and roll in the abundance of words; he must know not only the direct but also the secret power of a word. There are overtones and undertones to a word, and lateral echoes, too. — Knut Hamsun

How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets. — Thomas Moore

There were such sounds as are not heard in daylight - moon sounds and cloud sounds and sounds of dark wind; branches talked and other small voices answered in anxious undertones. — Katharine Newlin Burt

Greek tragedy was pre-Freudian, so every emotion has to be so raw; there are no psychological undertones. — Lydia Leonard

Everything (N.W.A.) attempted had to possess criminal undertones. I can only assume they spent hours trying to deduce villainous ways to microwave popcorn (and if they'd succeeded, there would absolutely be a song about it, assumedly titled "Pop Goes the Corn Killa", or "45 Seconds to Bitch Snack"). — Chuck Klosterman

She wanted to live. She was vehemently impatient - she did not clearly know for what - to do, to be, to experience. And experience was slow in coming. All the world about her seemed to be - how can one put it? - in wrappers, like a house when people leave it in the summer. The blinds were all drawn, the sunlight kept out, one could not tell what colors these gray swathings hid. She wanted to know. And there was no intimation whatever that the blinds would ever go up or the windows or doors be opened, or the chandeliers, that seemed to promise such a blaze of fire, unveiled and furnished and lit. Dim souls flitted about her, not only speaking but it would seem even thinking in undertones ... During — H.G.Wells

I'm definitely an anomaly, but I'm making things. They're selling, say, martinis, and I'm kind of making vintage Riesling. People aren't going to sit there very often, not your average public, and your average music-business monster is not going to take the time to notice the overtones and the undertones inside the flavor. They'd rather just have the martini. — Ben Folds

Christopher heard a pair of women gossiping nearby, whispering in disapproving undertones.
" ... Ramsey was found flirting in a corner with a woman. They had to drag him away from her."
"Who was it?"
"His own wife."
"Oh, dear. — Lisa Kleypas

Personal accounts flow from the heart and tend to be the most difficult to write. It's nearly impossible to remove the emotional undertones, and it takes so much courage to open those pages to everyone else. — Javier A. Robayo

The only difference is that Dee's natural coloring looks like an American landscape - country-sky-blue eyes and hair the color of Tennessee wheat fields, golden strands with darker undertones. My hair is nearly black, and I have jealous green eyes. In a fairy tale, she'd play the good fairy. I'd be the evil witch's screwup second cousin. Dee — Emery Lord

Have you ever noticed how many silences there are Gilbert? The silence of the woods ... of the shore ... of the meadows ... of the night ... of the summer afternoon. All different because the undertones that thread them are different. — Lucy Maud Montgomery

Sexual distortions carry strong undertones of prejudice - sexism, racism and homophobia - that rob individuals of their individuality. Common stereotypes include "men are all dogs," "women are less interested in sex," "gays are promiscuous," certain races are frigid or hung, and certain sex acts are indulgent, effeminate, or immoral. Other distortions clearly function as tools of organizations or of religious or political figures to shape public opinion through dogma and to control their followers' lives. — Alexandra Katehakis

The problems of human subjectivity replicate themselves at many different scales, like the overtones and undertones in a stringed instrument striking ghost-intervals up and down into infinity. This is not Hegel's ingenuity, it is his responsiveness to the organic structure in us that echoes itself throughout the whole architecture. — Kenny Smith

Coffee is a lot like people. In many ways, it's deceiving. The sweetness that you smell as it brews is more often than not a fallacy. The scent of a dark roasted coffee bean promises you rich flavors with hints of chocolate and hazelnut, but if you're not used to coffee's deceptiveness, you're left with a bitter aftertaste dangling at the back of your throat. To those of us who are used to it- we've grown a fondness for that bitter taste. It's complex. It's teasing. It reminds us that most things in life are not consistently sweet with every sip. One morning, your coffee might brew mild with just a flirtation of nutty undertones, And the next morning, it might be pelting you in the face with those same nuts, leaving little stinging marks with each sip. It's moody. It's not easy to perfect. But when you get the perfect brew, it's rewarding. And that same perfection is not guaranteed tomorrow just because you managed it today. — Katana Collins

It's not like we were forced to do something we didn't want to do. I mean, when you see that scene you'll realize that we're really lucky that the weather came at us because now it has a lot more meaning that wasn't automatically there. There's some sort of undertones that wouldn't have existed had we shot it outside. So we got lucky on that and what we try to do is take whatever obstacles come our way and make them work in our favor. — Todd Farmer

When World War II erupted, colonialism was at its apogee. The courde of the war, however, its symbolic undertones, would sow the seeds of the system's defeat and demise. [ ... ] The central subject, the essence, the core relations between Europeans and Africans during the colonial era, was the difference of race, of skin color. Everything-each eaxchange, connection, conflict-was translated into the language of black and white. [ ... ] Into the African was inculcated the notion that the white man was untouchable, unconquerable, that whites constitute a homogenous, cohesive force. [ ... ] Then, suddenly, Africans recruited into the British and French armies in Europe observed that the white men were fighting one another, shooting one another, destroying one another's cities. It was revelation, a surprise, a shock. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

'Undertones of War' by Edmund Blunden seems to get less attention than the memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, but it is a great book. — Pat Barker

I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession with undertones of nausea. — Margaret Atwood

Dee's natural colouring looks like an American landscape - country-sky-blue eyes and hair the colour of Tennessee wheat fields, golden strands with darker undertones. My hair is nearly black, and I have jealous green eyes.

In a fairytale she'd play the good fairy. I'd be the evil witch's screwup second cousin. — Emery Lord

The voice of America has no undertones or overtones in it. It repeats its optimistic catchwords in a tireless monologue that has the slightly metallic sound of a gramophone. — Vance Palmer

She was a horse lover and she and Whitey kept a mean old paint, a fancy quarter horse/Arabian mix, a roan Appaloosa with one ghost eye named Spook, and a pony. So along with the whiskey and perfume and smoke, she often exuded faint undertones of hay, dust, and the fragrance of horse, which once you smell it you always miss it. Humans were meant to live with the horse. — Louise Erdrich

Being in a bathtub with Jackie Chan, I don't know, it has a way of bonding you I'll tell you that. I don't know if there are some weird undertones. It was like we had met in Los Angeles and we didn't have that much to say to each other but, after that bathtub scene, we were great friends. — Owen Wilson

In the beginning, I was so inspired by the music. I had the option to make something modern with classic undertones, but I wanted to make something that was exactly like that old sound. — Leon Bridges

At the other end of the room the three old men discussed infirmities; exchanging symptoms in undertones as boys might speak of lust. — Shirley Hazzard

An enchanting harmony of fuchsia, purple and pink undertones, Radiant Orchid inspires confidence and emanates great joy, love and health. It is a captivating purple, one that draws you in with its beguiling charm. — Leatrice Eiseman

Let's talk about the homoerotic undertones in sports," she said.
Paul thrust his head forward as if he hadn't heard right. "Excuse me? — Deirdre Martin

Have you ever noticed how many different silences there are, Gilbert? The silence of the woods ... of the shore ... of the meadows ... of the night ... of the summer afternoon. All different because all the undertones that thread them are different. I'm sure if I were totally blind and insensitive to heat and cold I could easily tell just where I was by the quality of the silence about me. — L.M. Montgomery

I'm sorry you got dragged into this." He waved a hand to indicate he meant the house, the entire situation. "Having to stay here, with me, when you should be home with your family." A pang of homesickness hit her as she thought of her parents and how disappointed they'd been that her leave had been "cancelled". That wasn't his fault though.
To ease his concern, she put on a smile. "Yeah, but hey, I could've done way worse in terms of roommates." She gave his leg a playful nudge with her hand.
His eyes warmed at her words and touch. The firelight brought out the deep bronze undertones in his hair, flickering in tones of gold and orange. She wanted to run her fingers through it to find out if it was as soft as it looked.
He shook his head slightly at her, looking amused. "Why'd you have to be so sweet?"
She shrugged and countered, "Why'd you have to be so damned good looking? — Kaylea Cross

She will listen to BBC radio and hear the accounts of the deaths and the riots - "religious with undertones of ethnic tension" the voice will say. And she will fling the radio to the wall and a fierce red rage will run through her at how it has all been packaged and sanitized and made to fit into so few words, all those bodies. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The poet's discourse can be compared to the track of a charged particle through a cloud-chamber. An energised field of association and connotation, of overtones and undertones, of rebus and homophone, surround its motion, and break from it in the context of collision .. in Western poetry so much of the charged substance is previous poetry. — George Steiner

I think you need to give me a pet name - a term of endearment."
His face was its typical impassive mask, but I could tell that I'd surprised him.
Finally, he said, "Like ... babe?"
"No - that feels awkward and wrong and has undertones of pedophilia. I'm thinking of something more age appropriate, yet affectionate. — Penny Reid

I tend toward the unnatural, sometimes with supernatural undertones or such. — Marge Simon

CJ's peace was restored.
Momentarily.
"Oh shit shit shit," a woman said. Her voice rippled with the kind of panic CJ expected from the bride today, but her husky undertones were too low for her to be any of his female relatives.
Perhaps the confessional hadn't been a gift from God after all.
"If that's what you need to do, but not right now, please," CJ said.
Her shriek splintered his last hopes for peace. "Ohmigod!" his intruder gasped.
"Not generally, but hey, if that's what you want to call me, I'm game. — Jamie Farrell

Her pleasure went on and on, and so did Ben's. Ben could almost smell the gardenia, could almost see her pinning it on, her hands all thumbs.
"You're selling your store?" she said.
There was radiance between them now. There were overtones and undertones to everything they said. The talk itself was formal, lifeless.
"Money Talks — Kurt Vonnegut

And confronting these men, wild and terrible as we agree that they were, there were men of quite another kind, smiling and adorned with ribbons and stars, silk stockinged, yellow gloved and with polished boots; men who insisted on the preservation of the past, of the Middle Ages, of divine right, of bigotry, ignorance, enslavement, the death penalty and war, and who, talking in polished undertones, glorified the sword and the executioners' block. For our part, if we had to choose between the barbarians of civilization and those civilized upholders of barbarism we would choose the former. — Victor Hugo