100 Quotes About Singing

I..I sang, " she whispered, "if that matters, " and Karou felt her heart pulled to pieces. This Misbegotten warrior, fiercest of them all, had crouched in an icy stream bed to sing a chimera soul into her canteen, because she hadn't known what else to do. The singing wouldn't have mattered, but she wasn't going to tell Liraz that. If Ziri's soul was in that canteen, Karou would happily learn whatever song Liraz had sung and make it part of her resurrection ritual forever, just so that the angel would never feel that she'd been foolish. . Laini Taylor

Are you asking me if there is a god?' he said, still in that soft voice. 'All I can say is, I believe there is. I feel him when I sing. He has responded to my prayers countless times. He guides my actions and he dwells in my heart. I know he is there. Sharon Shinn

THE FOUR HEAVENLY FOUNTAINSLaugh, I tell you And you will turn back The hands of time. Smile, I tell you And you will reflect The face of the divine. Sing, I tell you And all the angels will sing with you! Cry, I tell you And the reflections found in your pool of tears -Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterday To guide you through the fears of tomorrow. Suzy Kassem

Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud, but I walked numbly through the park, round and round, 40 times for 4 hoursjust wanting to make it through the day. There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got throughand the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories, but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desktick tick tickme not making a soundand some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind, but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine. This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely waysbut you can not let it. I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use. the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness, thinking it will help but it only feeds the fireand I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me–little me. From nowhere at all. And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again. It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day. Charlotte Eriksson

That's a nice song, ' said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time. It's an old soldiers' song, ' he said. Really, sarge? But it's about angels.' Yes, thought Vimes, and it's amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It's a real soldiers' song: sentimental, with dirty bits. As I recall, they used to sing it after battles, ’ he said. 'I've seen old men cry when they sing it, ’ he added. Why? It sounds cheerful.' They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You'll learn. I know you will. Terry Pratchett

Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives. Ally Condie

Sendak is in search of what he calls a "yummy death". William Blake set the standard, jumping up from his death bed at the last minute to start singing. "A happy death, " says Sendak. "It can be done." He lifts his eyebrows to two peaks. "If you're William Blake and totally crazy. Maurice Sendak

.. so this is for us. This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and loveand this is for doing it even if no one will ever knowbecause the beauty is in the act of doing it. Not what it can lead to. This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playingand no one is around and they will never knowbut I will forever rememberand that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have, and this is for you who write or play or read or singby yourself with the light off and door closedwhen the world is asleep and the stars are alignedand maybe no one will ever hear itor read your wordsor know your thoughtsbut it doesn’t make it less glorious. It makes it ethereal. Mysterious.Infinite.For it belongs to you and whatever God or spirit you believe inand only you can decide how much it meantand meansand will forever meanand other people will experience it toothrough you. Through your spirit. Through the way you talk. Through the way you walk and love and laugh and careand I never meant to write this longbut what I want to say is: Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourselfand let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story. Let your very identity be your book. Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody. So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountainwhere no one will ever hearand your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar. Make your life be your artand you will never be forgotten. Charlotte Eriksson

I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldn’t even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrowfor I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspiredbut empty and weary from drinking too much at all timesand I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speakfor I don’t speak muchat alland my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too muchor not at alland never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am nota poembut an elegyat my bestbut unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because there’s only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and I’m pretty fine with that, but others are not. Charlotte Eriksson

I am a free soul, singing my heart out by myself no matter where I go and I call strangers my friends because I learn things and find ways to fit them into my own world. I hear what people say, rearrange it, take away and tear apart until it finds value in my reality and there I make it work. I find spaces in between the cracks and cuts where it feels empty and there I make it work. Charlotte Eriksson

When I was a child, Mama had the best voice of all the members of the church. She had loved to sing. Her words had soared like an angel's over the swells of the organ. In fact, I now suspected, her entire theology had been taken from the hymnal. Siri Mitchell

This is a day of celebration! Today, we are divorcing the pastand marrying the present. Dance, and you will find Godin every room. Today, we are divorcing resentmentand marrying forgiveness. Sing, and God will find you in every tune. Today, we are divorcing indifferenceand marrying love. Drink, and play that tambourine against your thighs. We have so much celebrating to do! Kamand Kojouri

Do you like singing?" Miriam asked her." If it is good, " she said. Paul, of course, coloured." You mean if it is high-class and trained?" he said." I think a voice needs training before the singing is anything, " she said." You might as well insist on having people's voices trained before you allowed them to talk, " he replied. "Really, people sing for their own pleasure, as a rule."" And it may be for other people's discomfort. D.H.Lawrence

You must be more alive than life. You must see darkness danceand hear silence sing. You must be more awake than lightfor we aren’t born sleepingand we shouldn’t live sleeping. Only then will death’s slumberbecome sweet. Kamand Kojouri

What is life? Life is living in this moment, experiencing and experimenting but experience isn’t life. Life is reflecting and meditating but reflection isn’t life. Life is helping and guiding but philanthropy isn’t life. Life is eating and drinking but food isn’t life. Life is reading and dancing but art isn’t life. Life is kissing and pleasuring but sex isn’t life. Life is winning and losing but competition isn’t life. Life is loving and caring but love isn’t life. Life is birthing and nurturing but children aren’t life. Life is letting go and surrendering but death isn’t life. Life is all these things but all these things aren’t life. Life is always more. Kamand Kojouri

Beautiful songs could sometimes take a person out of themselves and carry them away to a place of magic. But when Jill sang, it was not about the song, really. She could sing the phone book. She could sing a shopping list. Whatever she sang, whatever the words or the tune, it was so beautiful, so achingly lovely, that no one could listen and be untouched. Michael Grant

Witnessing the panoply of beauty in all of nature takes us out of our shell of self-absorption and makes us realize that we are merely bit players in the game of life. Witnessing the majesty of beauty confirms that the real show lies outside us to observe and appreciate and not inside us to transfix us. True beauty charms us into seeing the grandeur of goodness that surrounds us and by doing so, the pristine splendor of nature releases us from wallowing in the poverty of our self-idealization. The bewitching spell cast by the exquisiteness of nature levitates our souls and transforms our psyche. When we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch what is beautiful, we cannot suppress the urge to replicate its baffling texture by singing, dancing, painting, or writing. Opening our eye to the loveliness of a single flower is how we stay in touch with the glorious pageantry of living. Kilroy J. Oldster

But singing isn’t just about belting it out, is it? It’s not just who has the most wobble or the highest note, no, it’s about phrasing, and being delicate, and getting just the right feeling from a song, the soul of it, so that something real happens inside you when a man opens his mouth to sing, and don’t you want to feel something real rather than just having your poor earholes bashed in? . Zadie Smith

Art doesn’t give rise to anything in us that isn’t already there. It simply stirs our curious consciousness and sparks a fire that illuminates who we have always wanted to be. Kamand Kojouri

In musical performances one can sense that the person on stage is having a good time even if they're singing a song about breaking up or being in a bad way. For an actor this would be anathema, it would destroy the illusion, but with singing one can have it both ways. As a singer, you can be transparent and reveal yourself on stage, in that moment, and at the same time be the person whose story is being told in the song. Not too many kinds of performance allow that. . David Byrne

After a while Luce curled up with her head leaning on a rock, wondering why she wasn't consumed with despair. Instead she felt an inexplicable sense of peace. She was cradled in music. The rocks around her chanted like slow, growling bells, and each curl of the water stroked her fins with silky notes. She'd been so afraid of leaving her tribe, but she understood that she never would have heard the music resonating out of every crook of the world if she hadn't taken so many risks. She'd opened her heart to the music of solitude, and it had come to her. Sarah Porter

To be happy to be sad and sad to be happy is to sing an echo in that beautiful language called Sorrow. Criss Jami

I sing a beautiful song quietly in my heart. Lailah Gifty Akita

Lord I thank you for the gift of breath, eyes to see, ears to hear, tongue to taste, nose to smell; mouth to speak, face to smile, voice to sing, body to dance, legs to walk, mind to think and hands to write. Lailah Gifty Akita

Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, 'Life in the Fast Lane?' That's what they're saying right there? You think, 'why have I been singing 'wipe in the vaseline?' how many people have heard me sing 'wipe in the vaseline?' I am an idiot. Ellen DeGeneres

If I cannot fly, let me sing. Stephen Sondheim

Words make you think. Music makes you feel. A song makes you feel a thought. E.Y. Harburg

He who sings scares away his woes. Unknown

Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone's very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food. Anne Lamott

And all meet in singing, which braids together the different knowings into a wide and subtle music, the music of living. Alison Croggon

A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists. Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song. Vera Nazarian

Your voice has haunted every inch of my soul since the last time I heard it…my world had been so dark, void of sound and then I heard you sing again–and it exploded. Everything came crashing down on me that I’d been holding in, and then I was just a mess. But I wasn’t suffering in silence anymore. I was suffering from the impenetrable sound of your voice on repeat in my head. Cassandra Giovanni

Her silent singing wrapped around the story she was telling herself, which she extended further every night on the deck. (Averill often told herself stories-- the activity seemed to her as unavoidable as dreaming.) Her singing was a barrier set between the world in her head and the world outside, between her body and the onslaught of the stars. Alice Munro

Brian came in heavy at that moment on his guitar, the rapid, high-pitched squeal ranging back and forth as his fingers flew along the frets. As the intro's tempo grew more rapid, Bekka heard Derek's subtle bass line as it worked its way in. After another few seconds Will came in, slow at first, but racing along to match the others' pace. When their combined efforts seemed unable to get any heavier, David jumped into the mix. As the sound got nice and heavy, Bekka began to rock back-and-forth onstage. In front of her, hundreds of metal-lovers began to jump and gyrate to their music. She matched their movements for a moment, enjoying the connection that was being made, before stepping over to the keyboard that had been set up behind her. Sliding her microphone into an attached cradle, she assumed her position and got ready. Right on cue, all the others stopped playing, throwing the auditorium into an abrupt silence. Before the crowd could react, however, Bekka's fingers began to work the keys, issuing a rhythm that was much softer and slower than what had been built up. The audience's violent thrash-dance calmed at that moment and they began to sway in response. Bekka smiled to herself. This is what she lived for. . Nathan Squiers

By the way, this tells you why Auto-Tuned vocals on many contemporary records sound so shallow and lifeless. It’s almost as if everything we learned from African American music during the twentieth century was thrown out the window by technologies in the twenty-first century. The goal should not be to sing every note dead center in the middle of the pitch---we escaped from that musical prison a hundred years ago. Why go back? In an odd sort of way, much of contemporary pop music resembles opera, with all the subtle shadings of bent notes and microtonal alterations abandoned in the quest for mathematically pure tones. . Ted Gioia

Music heals all forms of misery Friedrich Nietzsche

We sing because we can't speak anymore. Dance is an extension of that - we dance because we can't speak anymore. Kristin Chenoweth

There are times in life to play it safe. I'm sure you can think of several. Music is not one of them. Deke Sharon

The human voice was the first instrument and remains the most powerful and effective method of musical creation and emotional transference. Deke Sharon

We love music deeply, but why? Put simply: music makes lives, shapes lives, expresses all shades and stages of life - and even saves lives. Rasheed Ogunlaru

I sing, no matter who is listening coz it is my natural way of expression. Jeffy Thomas

I try to make the music give people a chance to become engrossed with what they hear enough to possibly experience things they've probably experienced on their own but don't normally let themselves go so as to feel them fully. Oliver

A song should stand on its own and on what a singer does with it. It shouldn't need a lot of extra help to be good. Oliver

My job is to entertain people by playing my music well. You shouldn't really be upset because people like you, should you? Oliver

It does not need to be perfect - or technically correct - to be magic Rasheed Ogunlaru

Anna's voice wasn't a beautiful voice - rough edged and sorrowful, a bit used, somehow male and female at once. Yet it had more vibrancy to it than most Danish voices, which were often thin and white and too pretty to trigger a shiver. Anna's voice had the heat of the south; it warmed Einar, as if her throat were red with coals. David Ebershoff

Ah! keep my songs within your heart (The heart that holds the singer too), And never to the world impart The music only meant for you. Nor breathe one word, one tender word aloud, Lest it be heard by the cold-hearted crowd. To sing what only you can hear Will keep my heart in perfect tune; As sings the nightingale, when clear Above her shines the summer moon, And every tone of truthful love that flows Is heard alone by the enraptured rose. L. G. McVean

In the early days, I might have gotten on stage and begun to sing as a desperate attempt to communicate, but now I found that singing was both a physical and emotional joy. It was sensuous, a pure pleasure, which didn't take away from the emotions being expressed–even if they were melancholic. Music can do that; you can enjoy singing about something sad. David Byrne

And so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground — because I am afraid — Emily Dickinson

A sad, plangent music. In the British camp, Sharpe thought, they would be singing, but no one was singing here. Bernard Cornwell

Music is music. Lailah Gifty Akita

People began to join in, quietly at first to match her mood, but as the song built up at the end, their voices did as well, so that by the time they got to the final “Free to be you and me, ” the whole school could hear them. Caught in the pure delight of it, Jess turned and his eyes met Leslie’s. He smiled at her. What the heck? There wasn’t any reason he couldn’t. What was he scared of anyhow? Lord. Sometimes he acted like the original yellow-bellied sapsucker. He nodded and smiled again. She smiled back. He felt there in the teachers’ room that it was the beginning of a new season in his life, and he chose deliberately to make it so. He did not have to make any announcement to Leslie that he had changed his mind about her. She already knew it. She plunked herself down beside him on the bus and squeezed over closer to him to make room for May Belle on the same seat. She talked about Arlington, about the huge suburban school she used to go to with its gorgeous music room but not a single teacher in it as beautiful or as nice as Miss Edmunds. . Katherine Patterson

I’d prefer silence and random jokes about the passing billboards and scenery, but I know how he likes music. I just hope he doesn’t start singing. C.B. Cook

When I discovered music – when I discovered the craft of shaping a song – my being fell into place. Charlotte Eriksson

Charles Wallace and the unicorn moved through the time-spinning reaches of a far glazy, and he realized that the galaxy itself was part of a mighty orchestra, and each star and planet within the galaxy added its own instrument to the music of the spheres. As long as the ancient harmonies were sung, the universe would not entirely lose its joy. Madeleine LEngle

Man's delight in the Lord is the absolute peak of human triumph. He praises God when full of joy, and when not, he praises God to become full of joy. For to know and to live as though God is worthy of all praise, in all one's circumstances, whether seemingly good or seemingly bad, is the primary definition of joy and the richest triumph for man under God. Criss Jami

When there's music in your soul, there's soul in your music. Criss Jami

Great emotional singing isn't a destination, it's a journey, one to be taken time and again to different places with different moods and different audiences. Deke Sharon

Am I making something worth while? I’m not sure. I write and I sing and I hear words from time to time about my life and choices making ways, into other lives, other hearts, but am I making something worth while? I’m not sure. There was a boy last night who I never spoke to because I was too drunk and still shy, but mostly lonely, and I couldn’t find anything lightly to say, so I simply walked awaybut still wondered what he did with his lifebecause he didn’t even speak to meor look at mebut still made me wonder who he wasand I walked away asking Am I making something worth while? I am not sure. I am a complicated person with a simple lifeand I am the reason for everything that ever happened to me. . Charlotte Eriksson

Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars, not if you care for such things. J.r.r. Tolkien

Singing in a storm silences thunder’s threats. Matshona Dhliwayo

Let your heart sing from those wounded places. When you sing your song with everything you've got, it will not only heal you, but it will heal all of us through you. Gemma B. Benton

She sang late into the night, till her heart was full Anamika Mishra

She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wildrose beauty, and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty years. At the end of it she was still singing. George Orwell

A person can drop dead even while singing. But that's no reason to stop singing. Marty Rubin

I sing the song in my heart. Lailah Gifty Akita

The Inner Self...What makes us who we areshould be glorifiedpersonifiedand sung unto the stars! Muse

Blessed is the nightbird that sings for joy and not to be heard. Marty Rubin

If God wanted the woods to be quiet, He would not have given birds songs to sing. Matshona Dhliwayo

Singing with children in the schools has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Pete Seeger

Hearing women singing about themselves - rather than men singing about women - makes everything seem wonderfully clear, and possible Caitlin Moran

She let the fear burn inside her like fuel, making her voice even stronger. Rick Riordan

Music gives strength to the soul. Lailah Gifty Akita

I have drunk the night and swallowed the stars. I am dancing with abandon and singing with rapture. There is not a thing I do not love. There is not a person I have not forgiven. I feel a universe of love. I feel a universe of light. Tonight, I am with old friends and we are returning home. The moon is our witness. Kamand Kojouri