Voice Quotes

When I am in a situation where I feel uncomfortable about speaking but it is necessary for me to speak, or if I feel 'put on the spot' my voice sounds strained, really weird, and it feels as if I have no control over how I sound in these situations. Sometimes then my voice is barely audible and I am frequently asked to repeat myself. Attempts at speaking are often embarrassing, shaming experiences for me. I sound quite different when speaking with someone I am more relaxed with, but I don't like the way my voice sounds at the best of times; I was horrified when I heard a recording of myself. Because of this inhibition about speaking, I have never learned to project my voice or to use it effectively. I often feel that I could no more use my vocal cords to break a silence, to get somebody's attention or to initiate an interaction than I could run through fire or do something dangerous in my life.

~ Carl Sutton

Silence introduced in a society that worships noise is like the Moon exposing the night. Behind darkness is our fear. Within silence our voice dwells. What is required from both is that we be still. We focus. We listen. We see and we hear. The unexpected emerges.

~ Terry Tempest Williams

Thy silence, then that voices thee.

~ Herman Melville

There’s comfort in hearing a voice when the world is silent.

~ Shannon Wiersbitzky

When silence is a choice, it is an unnerving presence. When silence is imposed, it is censorship.

~ Terry Tempest Williams

To write,” Marguerite Duras remarked, “is also not to speak. It is to keep silent. It is to howl noiselessly.

~ Terry Tempest Williams

Those who speak largely of the human condition are usually those most exempt from its oppressions - whether of sex, race, or servitude.

~ Adrienne Rich

There is an art to writing, and it is not always disclosure. The act itself can be beautiful, revelatory, and private.

~ Terry Tempest Williams

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

~ Margaret Atwood

The Bible is the voice of God, calling out to everyone.

~ Sunday Adelaja

I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse.

~ Henry David Thoreau

The individuals inside are frequently fighting that their individual voices be heard, while the walls of the place, which are the mask, and the perception, are reluctant to give over to the voices of the individuals. Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance. Part of the identity of a place is the tension between those in the margins, and those in the center, and they all live behind the walls which wear the tradition.

~ Anna Deavere Smith

Your voice is your identity. If you don't use it, your halfway to Asphodel already.

~ Rick Riordan

There is no index of character as sure as the voice.

~ Benjamin Disraeli

Whenever you deny the hand of Justice, Violence almost always steps in.

~ Suzy Kassem

A woman's voice ululated on the sound system, somewhere between an Islamic call to prayer and orgasm with a drumbeat.

~ James S.a. Corey

And I've been thinking: if the human race manages to destroy itself, as it often seems to want to do, or if some great disaster comes, as it did for the dinosaurs, then the birds will still manage to survive. When our gardens and fields and farms and woods have turned wild, when the park at the end of Falconer Road has turned into a wilderness, when our cities are in ruins, the birds will go on flying and singing and making their nests and laying their eggs and raising their young. It could be that the birds will exist for ever and for ever until the earth itself comes to an end, no matter what might happen to the other creatures. They'll sing until the end of time. So here's my thought: If there is a God, could it be that He's chosen the birds to speak for Him. Could it be true? The voice of God speaks through the beaks of birds.

~ David Almond

again, her singing was her only absolute, the only thing that was completely her. a thousand classes hadn't given her this concrete insight: her voice was her place in the world, the home she leaves in the morning and returns to at night, in which she can be herself in her entirety and hope to be loved for all that she is and in spite of all she is.

~ David Grossman

As the voices fall silent, the individuals who make up the amorphous and always changing community must decide for themselves, as they always have. I can’t write a coda because I can’t speak for others. I can only and ever speak for myself.

~ G.r. Reader

Choosing with integrity means finding ways to speak up that honor your reality, the reality of others, and your willingness to meet in the center of that large field. It’s hard sometimes.

~ Terry Tempest Williams

We must carefully cultivate the voice that speaks to us because an internal voice is the ultimate narrator of our charming and delightful personal story or the documentarian of our tragic and disgraceful plotlines. Stories that we tell ourselves become our functional reality, which format structures the concourse of the nested emotional control panel that guides and girds us through the din of the present.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Listening over and over to the voices through a family of instruments allowed us to recognize and appreciate the dignity and uniqueness of each living thing in the meadow and forest.

~ Terry Tempest Williams

... I deny your right to put words into my mouth.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Trying to erase, hide, discredit, degrade, and suppress a writer's work, merit, voice, and influence―is unconstitutional. Censorship only exists to protect corruption.

~ Suzy Kassem

A bad handwriting is as annoying to a reader … as an irritating voice is to a listener.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

...authority is the unmistakeable tone in the voice of a true writer...

~ John Geddes

You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, 'This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I'm doing the best I can - buy me or not - but this is who I am as a writer.

~ David Morrell

Writing is the voice of the heart' Julia Suzuki

~ Julia Suzuki

Steam Lodge Song of the Sun Dance Ceremony:A voice, I will send. Hear me! The land All over, A voice I am sending! Hear me! I will live!

~ Frances Densmore

The silkiness of his voice was a torturous caress that I could have endured for the rest of my life.

~ Melissa Andrea

In solitude, you listen to the sacred voice.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

His voice as smooth as silk, Grant started into his standard crowd-pleaser: Sinatra’s 'My Kind of Town.

~ Jennifer Lane

Music enables an ability of divine expression transcending any words.

~ Temi Peters

The place where music and worship meet is like a divine mystery of sorts.

~ Temi Peters

All music has a message and a spirit behind it.

~ Temi Peters

When the music is birthed from a place of worship it carries a spirit of worship.

~ Temi Peters

When the lyrical content is based on the word of God it becomes covenanted.

~ Temi Peters

God is not looking for incredibly high notes, intricate riffs or award winning ad-libbing. God is looking at the heart.

~ Temi Peters

Worship is not about having a fantastic voice.

~ Temi Peters

Being real doesn't mean being reckless, it means allowing La Voz Mitologica, The Mythological Voice, to speak. One does that by shutting off the ego for a while and letting that which wishes to speak, speak.

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés