Shrill Quotes

#1. In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix with tears; and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own.

Herman Melville

#2. Gas!" Hallorann cried, his voice shrill and breaking. "Gonna burn you, baby! Dig on it awhile!

Stephen King

#3. Jana!" my husband's shrill tone hit me just as I smashed in the second taillight. "Oh, my God! Are you insane?" I

Carmen DeSousa

#4. The well-known shrill voice startled Almayer from his dream of splendid future into the unpleasant realities of the present hour. An unpleasant voice too. He had heard it for many years, and with every year he liked it less. No matter; there would be an end to all this soon.

Joseph Conrad

#5. How does a woman in authority convey that authority? Is it possible for a woman to rule without sounding shrill? Is it possible for a woman to manage without manipulating? All of these things seem to me to be very much at the fore today, and were no less the case 2,000 years ago.

Stacy Schiff

#6. As I was saying, that's the dark secret of our time, no one mentions it, but every time one opens a door one is greeted by a shrill, desperate and inaudible scream.

Doris Lessing

#7. There is laughter, shrill calls. Everyone is flirting, saying in nudges and jokes and blushing what they would do in private.

Jesmyn Ward

#8. The wind stirred the drying leaves of wild grapevines with a papery rustle behind me, and in the distance a murder of crows passed, squabbling in shrill cries.

Diana Gabaldon

#9. Making female noises, shrieking and squeaking and being shrill, all those things that annoy people with longer vocal cords. Another case where the length of organs seems to be so important to men.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#10. Change to tinkling sheep- bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy
and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all

Lewis Carroll

#11. Talk of citizenship today is often thin and tinny. The word has a faintly old-fashioned feel to it when used in everyday conversation. When evoked in national politics, it's usually accompanied by the shrill whine of a descending culture-war mortar.

Eric Liu

#12. Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Hart Crane

#13. When everybody agrees," Taggart's voice suddenly went shrill, "when people are unanimous, how does one man dare to dissent? By what right? That's what I want to know - by what right?

Ayn Rand

#14. If any man has a ghost
Bourne has a ghost
a tiny twisted unscared ghost in a black cloak
hopping along the grimy old brick and brownstone streets still left in downtown New York,
crying out in a shrill soundless giggle:
War is the health of the State.

John Dos Passos

#15. The shrill witch-hunter voices of the showbiz correspondents would bring up every last bit left in your stomach from the night before

Haruki Murakami

#16. It is a dull sensation, your heart breaking, like the sound of a pebble dropping on the sand. Not a shattering, not a tearing apart, there is nothing shrill or grandiose about the sensation. It is merely an internal realization that something treasured you never knew you had is leaving forever.

Samantha Bruce-Benjamin

#17. In those few seconds Bonnie screamed, a high shrill wail that haunted the men about to kill her for the rest of their lives.

Jeff Guinn

#18. A melancholy sound is in the air,
A deep sigh in the distance, a shrill wail
Around my dwelling. 'Tis the Wind of night.

William C. Bryant

#19. Malkin concluded with this advice for parents: Be "prudes." Be "rude." Be "shrill." And never, ever feel ashamed for asking out loud, "Have you no shame?"[30]

James C. Dobson

#20. I just often find myself getting shrill, angry and the jokes get more incredulous.

David Cross

#21. For every shrill and violent voice that throws itself in front of microphones and cameras in the name of God, there are countless lives of gentleness and good works who will not. We need to see and hear them, as well, to understand the whole story of religion in our world.

Krista Tippett

#22. People say I'm shrill and strident.

Richard Dawkins

#23. The boy sang in a shrill high descant and seemed to be trying not to sing in tune.

Anton Chekhov

#24. You ooze joy and she is an open wound, shrill and wan, unfucked and unloved.

Caroline Kepnes

#25. No answer, just a squeal of brakes, a shrill "Fuck," and static.

N.E. White

#26. Too, if you're a true contemplative, your life and words will overflow with spiritual wisdom, compassion, and fruitful insight, because you're sure to measure out what you say carefully and calmly, eschewing lies and speaking without the shrill pretense of hypocrites.

Anonymous

#27. Hugo pulled away from Rosie's teat. 'No one is allowed to touch my body without my permission.' His voice was shrill and confident. Hector wondered where he learnt those words. From Rosie? At child care? Were they community announcements on the frigging television?

Christos Tsiolkas

#28. I experimented with all possible maneuvers-loops, somersaults and barrel rolls. I stood upside down on one finger and burst out laughing, a shrill, distorted laugh. Nothing I did altered the automatic rhythm of the air. Delivered from gravity and buoyancy, I flew around in space.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau

#29. It's an impossible castle in an enchanted snowstorm in a haunted forest," I said in a voice slightly more shrill than I had hoped for. "Naturally there are invisible servants to care for the horses." "Naturally." Father sounded as rattled as I, which made me feel a little better.

C.E. Murphy

#30. If we did not take action to solve this crisis, it could indeed threaten the future of human civilization. That sounds shrill. It sounds hard to accept. I believe it's deadly accurate. But again, we can solve it.

Al Gore

#31. For in the voyage of the heart, there is a freight of hatred, and the wind of wrath blows shrill.

Aeschylus

#32. None but the lark so shrill and clear;
Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings.

John Lyly

#33. Probably no strychnine has sent as many husbands into their graves as mealtime scolding has, and nothing has driven more men into the arms of other women as the sound of a shrill whine at table.

M.F.K. Fisher

#34. We have no faith in ourselves. I have never met a woman who, deep down in her core, really believes she has great legs. And if she suspects that she might have great legs, then she's convinced that she has a shrill voice and no neck.

Cynthia Heimel

#35. I will be me,
when world aberrantly
will feel, my gravity!
I will turn into my,
when their shrill cry
will stop asking why!
(Poem:Because you so wanna meet me, Book: Ginger and Honey)

Jasleen Kaur Gumber

#36. The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.

Edmund Spenser

#37. Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free.

Charles Mackay

#38. I'm not certain what I notice first, the bright flickering light that illuminates the darkness underneath my eyelids, or the shrill screams that pull me form the dredges of sleep. Either way, I'm awake. And afraid.

Christine Fonseca

#39. Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!

William Shakespeare

#40. The shrill voices of those who give orders
Are full of fear like the squeakings of
Piglets awaiting the butcher's knife, as their fat arses
Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs ...
Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but
The rulers too.

Bertolt Brecht

#41. And in that very moment, away behind in some far corner of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed reckoning nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

J.R.R. Tolkien

#42. Oft in the silence of the night,
When the lonely moon rides high,
When wintry winds are whistling,
And we hear the owl's shrill cry,
In the quiet, dusky chamber,
By the flickering firelight,
Rising up between two sleepers,
Comes a spirit all in white.

Louisa May Alcott

#43. Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves. "All books continue in the beyond ...

Italo Calvino

#44. 'I Love Lucy,' the first classic, really belonged more to the Wacky Woman genre than the domestic sitcom; 'My Little Margie' and 'I Married Joan' were among the shrill, coarse imitations.

Tom Shales

#45. when she realised he was enjoying the cut-glass shrill of silence that followed, she felt a hatred for him so extreme that had it found physical release, he would have dropped to the floor with every bone in his body shattered.

Stephen Lloyd Jones

#46. Mitt Romney's primary season embrace of the social and economic agenda of the more rabid elements of his party doomed him, especially the shrill immigration rhetoric and the harshly insensitive theory that no additional sacrifice or contribution should be sought from those at the top.

Eliot Spitzer

#47. I hate imitation jewelry, dark lipstick and most of all a shrill voice. This has spoiled many a picture of feminine loveliness.

Ray Milland

#48. Hark to that shrill, sudden shout,
The cry of an applauding multitude,
Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields
The living mass as if he were its soul!

William C. Bryant

#49. I detest heavy perfume and shrill voices.

Renee Vivien

#50. Some girl named Eva has him convinced that you put out after one beer."
"What?" My voice was as shrill as the ringing tardy bell
"I personally don't believe it" he went on blithely, "and I have a Porsche. Not as much leg room as a Beamer, but so much hotter, I'm told.

Jennifer L. Armentrout

#51. I'm in my junior year but I can't take it anymore. The beige walls, the scent of linoleum and used lockers, the shrill bell between classes. High school is sucking the life out of me.

Diana Abu-Jaber

#52. It was a grand old house, the Ayemenem House, but aloof-looking. As though it had little to do with the people who lived in it. Like an old man with rheumy eyes watching children play, seeing only transience in their shrill elation and their whole-hearted commitment to life.

Arundhati Roy

#53. I must be mad, or very tired, When the curve of a blue bay beyond a railroad track Is shrill and sweet to me like the sudden springing of a tune, And the sight of a white church above thin trees in a city square Amazes my eyes as though it were the Parthenon.

Amy Lowell

#54. The mask means to me: freshness of color, sumptuous decoration, wild unexpected gestures, very shrill expressions, exquisite turbulence.

James Ensor

#55. Let our voices be heard. I hope they will not be shrill voices, but, I hope we shall speak with such conviction that those to whom we speak shall know of the strength of our feeling and the sincerity of our efforts.

Gordon B. Hinckley

#56. Not like cats " cried the Mouse in a shrill passionate voice. "Would you like cats if you were me

Lewis Carroll

#57. Fabulous Jack said, reaching down and plucking a crimson flower. A small scream sounded from it as he severed the stem. He smiled maliciously, then started stomping with abandon through the beds of blossoms, a chorus of tinny, shrill screams punctuating every step.

Kiersten White

#58. It is a scene of Satyrs and Nymphs, of pursuits and captures, provocative resistances followed by the enthusiastic surrender of lips to bearded lips, of panting bosoms to the impatience of rough hands, the whole accompanied by a babel of shouting, squealing and shrill laughter

Aldous Huxley

#59. I tried to say something cool, wound up stammering something like, "WANNA YOU WANNA WEENIE ME?" The end kind of trailed off in a shrill, choking warble.

David Wong

#60. Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination.

Al Gore

#61. Like a black pirate flag on the blue ocean of air, a hawk hung ominous; then, plummet-wise, dropped to the hedgerow, whence there rose, thin and shrill, a piteous voice of squealing. By

Kenneth Grahame

#62. There was something strangely compelling about a Japanese guy with lamb-chop sideburns and a voice so shrill you could be forgiven for thinking his testicles were wired to the national grid.

Jamie Holoran

#63. It seemed to him that he could hardly hear the sound of his own shrill voice: it was blown away from him by the willow-wind and drowned in a clamor of leaves, as soon as the words left his mouth. He felt desperate: lost and witless.

J.R.R. Tolkien

#64. We can expect the climate crisis industry to grow increasingly shrill, and increasingly hostile toward anyone who questions their authority.

Kenneth P. Green

#65. The pain was shrill enough, but the idea of a finger of mine twitching about, lost in chicken-pecked dust, was more terrible.

Daniel Woodrell

#66. In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are shrill. But ... the wisest voice of all of them may well be the voice of this mute thing, the Cyrus cylinder.

Neil MacGregor

#67. Car horns, shrill and prolonged, blared one after another. Flashing sirens heralded endless emergencies, and a fleet of buses rumbled past, their doors opening and closing with a powerful hiss, throughout the night. The noise was constantly distracting, at times suffocating.

Jhumpa Lahiri

#68. Amid the thousands of shrill voices screaming for our attention, there is but on Voice we need to hear. The voice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

David Jeremiah

#69. I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is more like confused.

David Foster Wallace

#70. Doing your job requires different modes, and you can't just be stuck in one mode where you're always the shrill outsider screaming at everybody.

Joaquin Castro

#71. Her voice was now so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless..

J.K. Rowling

#72. Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy. Great words are clear and limpid; little words are shrill and quarrelsome.

Chuang Chou

#73. I've never liked the telephone. It's a noisy, shrill intruder. If it were up to me, I'd ban all phones and bring back visiting days, like in Jane Austen and Edith Wharton novels:

Terri Cheney

#74. Loving yourself is not antithetical to health, it is intrinsic to health. You can't take good care of a thing you hate.

Lindy West

#75. We're all building our world, right now, in real time. Let's build it better.

Lindy West