Humming Quotes:

But you make me sing like a guitar humming . . .

- Neil Diamond

topic: Guitar, Humming

There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.

- Pythagoras

topic: Science, Spheres, Humming, Math And Music, Spacing

You've got to perform in a role hundreds of times. In keeping it fresh one can become a large, madly humming, demented refrigerator.

- Ralph Richardson

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Air, Roles, Humming, Demented

To us love says humming that the heart's stalled motor has begun working again.

- Vladimir Mayakovsky

source: 1928 'Letter fromParis to Comrade Kostorov on the Nature of Love' (translated by Samuel Charteris).

topic: Heart, Humming, Motor

I have no idea how to do what you're supposed to do. I do a little bit of humming.

- Martina Sorbara

topic: Ideas, Littles, Humming

And if I was humming "Happy Birthday" and smiling stupidly as I fled for my life—well, that was nobody's business, was it?

- Rick Riordan

topic: Humming, Wells, Ifs

Marvin was humming ironically because he hated humans so much.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.79, Pan Macmillan

topic: Humming, Hated, Humans

Marvin started his ironical humming again. Zaphod hit him and he shut up.

- Douglas Adams

source: Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.96, Pan Macmillan

topic: Shut Up, Humming, Marvin

I find humming is very useful.

- Elvis Costello

topic: Humming

You always will be singing a song or humming a line or a melody.

- Dennis Brown

topic: Song, Sight, Singing, Humming

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?

- Virginia Woolf

topic: Passion, Reflection, Brain, Humming, Brain Science

In Rio Bravo when Duke makes love to Feathers, the scene dissolves to the next morning where we see him putting on his vest and almost humming. It was subtle, but you knew what happened. Give me a towel and some blankets any day!

- Angie Dickinson

topic: Morning, Giving, Making Love, Humming, Bravo

Quick as a hummingbird...she darts so eagerly, swiftly, sweetly dipping into the flowers of my heart.

- James Oppenheim

topic: Flower, Heart, Hummingbirds, Darts, Humming

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

source: F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works”, p.3286, e-artnow

topic: Literature, Quitting, Whistling, Humming

I was influenced when I was younger by the cartoon movies that Disney put out, like Cinderella and what not. I watched those movies over and over when I was younger and the music is ingrained into my head. Nowadays, I'm still humming the tunes. It taught me the fundamentals.

- Zac Efron

topic: Cartoon, Fundamentals, Taught, Humming

A flash of harmless lightning, A mist of rainbow dyes, The burnished sunbeams brightening From flower to flower he flies.

- John B. Tabb

source: John B Tabb (1894). “Poems by John B Tabb”

topic: Flower, Rainbow, Lightning, Sunbeams, Humming

You've got to find ways to breathe while you're dancing so that when it comes time for you to stop and sing again, you have it. To prepare, I do a lot of aerobic activity. Many times at the gym, people will look at me because I'll be on the treadmill humming.

- Kristin Chenoweth

topic: People, Dancing, Looks, Humming

I'm not one for walking the beaches humming a melody. I love the discipline of sitting in the studio, writing and listening. That is my domain.

- Enya

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Beach, Writing, Discipline, Humming

It was his subconscious which told him this - that infuriating part of a person's brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing.

- Douglas Adams

source: "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul". Book by Douglas Adams, 1988.

topic: Meaningful, Giving, Brain, Nudge, Interrogation

A kiss, when all is told, what is it? An oath taken a little closer, a promise more exact. A wish that longs to be confirmed, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love'. A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear, a moment of infinity humming like a bee, a communion tasting of flowers, a way of breathing in a little of the heart and tasting a little of the soul with the edge of the lips!

- Edmond Rostand

topic: Taken, Flower, Heart, Humming

I don't know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, 'Why don't you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?' And I always say, well, when you say that, you've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that's got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate.

- David Attenborough

topic: Atheist, Believe, Butterfly, Living Organisms, West Africa

The stillness of the calm is awful. His voice begins to grow strange and portentous. He feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. It keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a live beetle. His cranium is a dome full of reverberations. The hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. He is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum.

- Herman Melville

source: Herman Melville (1849). “Mardi: And a Voyage Thither”, p.21

topic: Men, Voice, Whispering, Like Something, Stunned

Life set itself to new processions of seed-time and harvest, the skin newly turned to seasonal variations, the very blood humming to new altitudes.

- Mary Hunter Austin

topic: Humming

As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.

- Desiderius Erasmus

topic: Life, Wise, Laughter, Break Off, Midges

Bebop was like humming along to Mitch Miller to me.

- Albert Ayler

topic: Music, Bebop, Jazz, Humming

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

source: Alfred Tennyson Tennyson, Baron, Alfred Lord Tennyson (2014). “Fifty Poems”, p.102, Cambridge University Press

topic: Summer, Garden, Cities, Humming

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song.

- Laurence Sterne

topic: Song, Book, Writing, Humming

Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.

- William Henry Hudson

source: William Henry Hudson (2010). “Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest”, p.111, The Floating Press

topic: Moving, Flower, Bird, Loveliness, Humming

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people.

- Chief Seattle

source: "Flow: For Love of Water". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 2008.

topic: Nature, Air, Land, Seattle, Land And Water

Today it takes no great stretch of the imagination to envisage the earth as an interconnected globe humming with electronic transmissions - a chattering planet nestled in the provident silence of space. The ethical question is whether this is contributing to authentic human development and helping individuals and peoples to be true to their transcendent destiny.

- John Foley

topic: Faith, Inspiration, Destiny, Ethical Questions, Humming

You look at it [a photograph] and all around the real world is humming, buzzing and moving, and yet in this little frame there is stillness that looks like the world. That connection, that collision, that interfacing, is one of the most astonishing things we can experience.

- Joel Meyerowitz

source: Joel Meyerowitz (1990). “Creating a sense of place”, Smithsonian Inst Pr

topic: Real, Moving, Connections, Humming, Astonishing

To be worth making at all a journey has to be made in the mind as much as in the world of objects and dimensions. What value can there be in seeing or experiencing anything for the first time unless it comes as a revelation? And for that to happen, some previously held thought or belief must be confounded, or enhanced, or even transcended. What difference can it make otherwise to see a redwood tree, a tiger, or a humming bird?

- Ted Simon

source: Ted Simon (1984). “Riding Home”

topic: Journey, Differences, Bird, Humming, Redwoods

Meditation is not concentration. It is simple awareness. You simply relax and watch the breathing. In that watching, nothing is excluded. The car is humming - perfectly okay, accept it. The traffic is passing - that's okay, part of life. The fellow passenger snoring by your side, accept it. Nothing is rejected. You are not to narrow down your consciousness.

- Rajneesh

topic: Life, Simple, Your Side, Humming, Snoring

Love is both Creator's and Saviour's gospel to mankind; a volume bound in rose-leaves, clasped with violets, and by the beaks of humming-birds printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies.

- Herman Melville

source: Herman Melville (1971). “Pierre, Or The Ambiguities: Volume Seven, Scholarly Edition”, p.34, Northwestern University Press

topic: Love, Rose, Bird, Beaks, Humming

YOU'RE just humming with sexual energy! Is it the fabric? Is it wearing tights?

- Richard Madeley

topic: Fabric, Energy, Tights, Humming

I remember having some problems with [the Deus Ex theme] when I first heard it and I was trying to figure out how to tell [Alex Brandon] I wanted changes. But then I noticed that I couldn't get it out of my mind. I was whistling or humming it to myself all the time. So I just kept my mouth shut and let it be. I think it's a highly addictive tune

- Warren Spector

topic: Thinking, Mind, Trying, Humming

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

- Kina Grannis

topic: Song, Writing, Guitar, Humming

All my life I've been aware of the Second World War humming in the background. I was born 10 years after it was finished, and without ever seeing it. It formed my generation and the world we lived in. I played Hurricanes and Spitfires in the playground, and war films still form the basis of all my moral philosophy. All the men I've ever got to my feet for or called sir had been in the war.

- A. A. Gill

topic: Philosophy, War, Men, Moral Philosophy, Humming

When April winds Grew soft, the maple burst into a flush Of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up, Opened in airs of June her multitude Of golden chalices to humming-birds And silken-wing'd insects of the sky.

- William C. Bryant

source: "The Fountain". Poem by William C. Bryant, 1839.

topic: Flower, June, Air, Maple, Chalice

It was almost noon when the plane touched down at the Triad airport on the outskirts of Greensboro. There was a hire car waiting for me; I waved my notepad at the dashboard to transmit my profile, then waited as the seating and controls rearranged themselves slightly, piezoelectric actuators humming. As I started to reverse out of the parking bay, the stereo began a soothing improvisation, flashing up a deadpan title: Music for Leaving Airports 11 June 2008.

- Greg Egan

topic: June, Airports, Car, Humming, Dashboards

Remembering how my mother looked before she gave birth to my sister is frightening. But even more frightening is the feeling that I wanted them to catch me and beat me. Why did I want to be punished? Shadows out of the past clutch at my legs and drag me down. I open my mouth to scream, but I am voiceless. My hands are trembling, I feel cold, and there is a distant humming in my ears.

- Daniel Keyes

topic: Mother, Past, Hands, Catch Me, Clutch

Solitude in the city is about the lack of other people or rather their distance beyond a door or wall, but in remote places it isn’t an absence but the presence of something else, a kind of humming silence in which solitude seems as natural to your species as to any other, words strange rocks you may or may not turn over.

- Rebecca Solnit

source: Rebecca Solnit (2006). “A Field Guide to Getting Lost”, p.68, Penguin

topic: Wall, Distance, Rocks, Humming, Remote Places

Here’s what I learned: First thing in the morning, before I have drowned myself in coffee, while I still have that sleepy brain I used to believe was useless — that is the best brain for creative writing. Words come pouring out easily while my head still feels as if it is full of ground fog, wrapped in flannel and gauze, and surrounded by a hive of humming, velvety sleep bees.

- Merrill Markoe

topic: Morning, Coffee, Believe, Flannels, Humming

I am a black woman the music of my song some sweet arpeggio of tears is written in a minor key and I can be heard humming in the night Can be heard humming in the night

- Mari Evans

source: Mari Evans (2007). “Continuum: New and Selected Poems”

topic: Music, Song, Sweet, Humming

I was unfair to him, of course, but where would I have been without unfairness? In thrall, in harness. Young women need unfairness, it's one of their few defenses. They need their callousness, they need their ignorance. They walk in the dark, along the edges of high cliffs, humming to themselves, thinking themselves invulnerable.

- Margaret Atwood

source: Margaret Atwood (1989). “Cat's Eye”, Bantam

topic: Ignorance, Dark, Thinking, Humming, Callousness

[Short Talk on Sylvia Plath] Did you see her mother on television? She said plain, burned things. She said I thought it an excellent poem but it hurt me. She did not say jungle fear. She did not say jungle hatred wild jungle weeping chop it back chop it. She said self-government she said end of the road. She did not say humming in the middle of the air what you came for chop.

- Anne Carson

topic: Mother, Hurt, Government, Humming, End Of The Road

Suppose within each book there is another book, and within every letter on every page another volume constantly unfolding; but these volumes take no space on the desk. Suppose knowledge could be reduced to a quintessence, held within a picture, a sign, held within a place which is no place. Suppose the human skull were to become capacious, spaces opening inside it, humming chambers like beehives.

- Hilary Mantel

topic: Book, Skulls, Space, Humming, Quintessence

I’m in a shallow hole, not filled with the humming orange bubbles of my hallucination but with old, dead leaves.

- Suzanne Collins

source: Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games Trilogy”, p.262, Scholastic Inc.

topic: Orange, Hallucinations, Shallow, Humming

For the longest time after that, neither of us said anything. I was unaccustomed to his silence, but I didn't mind it. I knew near everything about him, and he knew near everything about me, and all that made our quiet a kind of song. The kind you hum without even knowing what it is or why you're humming it. The kind that you've always known.

- Gabrielle Zevin

topic: Song, Knowing, Silence, Humming

We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information.

- Neal Stephenson

source: "Snow Crash". Book by Neal Stephenson, 1992.

topic: Smart, Urban Legends, Self, Mass Hysteria, Viral

And the great spirit of darkness spread a shroud over me...everything was silent-everything. But upon the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent.

- Knut Hamsun

source: Knut Hamsun (2015). “Hunger”, p.40, Xist Publishing

topic: Song, Voice, Air, Humming, Shrouds

I still hear you humming, Mama. The colour of your song calls me home. The colour of your words saying, Let her be. She got a right to be different. She gonna stumble on herself one of these days. Just let the child be. And I be, Mama.

- Sonia Sanchez

source: Sonia Sanchez (2012). “Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems”, p.58, Beacon Press

topic: Daughter, Mother, Song, Mother And Daughter, Humming

One has the feeling of enormous safety. You don't have the torque from the propeller. You have no noise; it's almost like little electric motors humming inside, and you feel sort of safe.

- Erich Warsitz

topic: Airplane, Safety, Feelings, Torque, Humming