Best Vowels Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: Fairytale Clues: Magic-filled Stories That Slip English Grammar into the Heart

“A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels, Someday I shall tell of your mysterious births: A, black velvety corset of dazzling flies Buzzing around cruel smells, Gulfs of shadow; E, white innocence of vapors and of tents, Spears of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of Queen Anne's lace; I, purples, spitting blood, smile of beautiful lips In anger or in drunken penitence; U, waves, divine shudderings of green seas, The calm of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of furrows Which alchemy prints on wide, studious foreheads; O, sublime Bugle full of strange piercing sound, Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels; - O the Omega, the violet ray of her Eyes!”

Colors Vowels Synaesthesia

Author:Arthur Rimbaud

“If a picture paints a thousand words, then a naked picture paints a thousand words without any vowels....”

Humor Funny Naked Absurd Picture Vowels Paints

Book:And That’s Why I’m Single

Source: And That’s Why I’m Single

“Vowels were something else. He didn't like them, and they didn't like him. There were only five of them, but they seemed to be everywhere. Why, you could go through twenty words without bumping into some of the shyer consonants, but it seemed as if you couldn't tiptoe past a syllable without waking up a vowel. Consonants, you knew pretty much where they stood, but you could never trust a vowel. To the old pitcher, they were like his own best knuckle ball come back to haunt him. In, out, up, down - not even the pitcher, much much less the batter, knew which way it would break. He kept swinging and missing.”

Baseball Learning To Read Vowels

Author:Jerry Spinelli

“A, Black, E, white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels, Someday I shall tell of your mysterious births: A, black velvety corset of dazzling flies Buzzing around cruel smells, Gulfs of shadow; E, white innocence of vapors and of tents, Spears of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of Queen Anne's lace; I, purples, spitting blood, smile of beautiful lips In anger or in drunkin penitence; U, waves, divine shudderings of green seas, The calm of pastures dotted with animals, the pece of furrows Which alchemy prints on wide, studious foreheads; O, sublime Bugle full of strange piercing so und, Silences crossed by Worlds nad by Angels: - O the Omega, the violet ray of her Eyes!”

Vowels

Author:Arthur Rimbaud

“In English-language speech, we spend five times as much time producing vowels as consonants. In singing, that ratio can hit two hundred to one.”

Language Vowels

Book:Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning

Source: Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning

“In any case, e lengeege weth e smell nember ef vewels cen remeen quete expresseve, so we cannot conclude that a hominid with a restricted vowel space had little language.”

Language Expression Linguistics Vowels Neanderthals Hominids

Book:The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

Source: The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

“We also composed using what we called vowel movement - very important for songwriters. The sounds that work. Many times you don't know what the word is, but you know the word has got to contain this vowel, this sound. You can write something that'll look really good on paper, but it doesn't contain the right sound. You start to build the consonants around the vowels. There's a place to go ooh and there's a place to go daah. And if you get it wrong, it sounds like crap. It's not necessarily that it rhymes with anything at the moment, and you've got to look for the rhyming word too, but you know there's a particular vowel involved.”

Songwriting Rhyme Writing Process Vowels

Book:Life

Source: Life

“On the last drafts, I focus on the words themselves, including the rub of vowels and consonants, stressed and unstressed syllables. Yet even at this stage I'm often surprised. A different ending or a new character shows up and I'm back to where I began, letting the story happen, just trying to stay out of the way.”

Way Trying Different Character Stories Shows Happens Lasts Focus Stage Including Stressed Syllables I'm Back Vowels Consonants

Author:Ron Rash

“A cathedral without windows, a face without eyes, a field without flowers, an alphabet without vowels, a continent without rivers, a night without stars, and a sky without a sun—these would not be so sad as a . . . soul without Christ.”

Soul Eye Faces Night Stars Christ Sun Sky Fields Flower Rivers Window Continents Cathedrals Alphabet So Sad Vowels

Author:Tad R. Callister

“Every poet knows the pun is Pierian, that it springs from the same soil as the Muse?a matching and shifting of vowels and consonants, an adroit assonance sometimes derided as jackassonance.”

Knows Sometimes Poet Spring Soil Muse Shifting Pun Matching Vowels Consonants Assonance

Author:Louis Untermeyer

“God have mercy on the sinner Who must write with no dinner, No gravy and no grub, No pewter and no pub, No bellyand no bowels, Only consonants and vowels.”

Writing Mercy Dinner Sinner Pubs Gravy Bowels Vowels Consonants Pewter

Author:John Crowe Ransom

“In the Augustan age ... poetry was ... the sister of architecture; with the romantics, and their heightened vowel-sense, resulting in different melodic lines, she became the sister of music; in the present day, she appears like the sister of horticulture, each poem growing according to the law of its own nature.”

Different Age Law Poetry Lines Growing Architecture Present Day Vowels Horticulture

Author:Edith Sitwell

“[On the United States:] A nation which does not appreciate that the simple elocution exercise 'Merry Mary married hairy Harry' contains not one but three vowel sounds.”

Doe States Three Language Nations Sound Simple United United States Exercise Married Appreciate Mary Merry Vowels Elocution

Author:Jessica Mitford

“The thing is to sift out the important sounds, little syllables and vowels that bring hints of their lost words, and not to mistake the fossil for the life, or the kiss for the love, not to mistake the fragment for the sentence.”

Littles Important Lost Sound Mistake Kissing Sentences Fossils Fragments Hints Syllables Vowels

Author:Richard Jackson

“I don't think there's a problem. First of all, I don't think music turns people into social liabilities. Because you hear a lyric - there's no medical proof that a person hearing a lyric is going to act out the lyric. There's also no medical proof that if you hear any collection of vowels and consonants, that the hearing of that collection is going to send you to Hell.”

People Ifs Thinking Firsts Persons Problem Turns Social Hell Atheism Hearing Positive Atheism Proof Medical Collections Liability Vowels Consonants

Author:Frank Zappa

“I invented the colors of the vowels!--A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green--I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.”

Made Form Poetry Language Black White Movement Color Poet Red Blue Green Senses Rhythm Poetic Flattered Vowels Consonants

Author:Arthur Rimbaud

“I don't use my lips. I use my tongue to make - create the vowels.”

Use Lips Tongue Vowels

Author:Dolora Zajick

“Sometimes a musical imagination is as important as singing itself, you know, the voice, what you do vocally, the vowels. So there's a percussiveness that can sometimes be quite energizing and useful in singing as an expressive device.”

Knows Important Sometimes Voice Imagination Singing Musical Devices Expressive Vowels Energizing

Author:Dolora Zajick

“When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us. When I was figuring out how to perform solo, I wanted to move back and forth between bass riffs, melody, and harmony, so I often used sounds instead of — or alongside — the words of a song. I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them.”

“The secret to freestyling is working on the creation of thought and it being expressed from your cerebral cortex, to the air in your lungs, to your larynx, pharynx, to your tongue to form a word via whatever consonants and vowels you're working with as well as having a sense of style, cadence, and rhythm.”

Wells Form Secret Air Style Creation Tongue Rhythm Lungs Cerebral Cadence Vowels Consonants

Author:Myka 9

“Leigh [Bowery] affected a posh English voice and elongated his vowels, and you never knew if he was being sincere or mocking you. If I ever commented on one of his outfits he would snip, "Oh, thank you, Mr. Boy George. I do value your opinion." And then he would spin and make some ridiculous noise and mince off.”

Ifs Values Voice Opinion Boys Ridiculous Noise Affected Sincere Outfits Posh Vowels Being Sincere

Author:Boy George

“I'm going to say a phrase or terminology or vowel that I don't know how to attack .”

Knows Know How Phrases Terminology Vowels

Author:Lake Bell

“Every time I see Dan Quayle I feel like buying a vowel.”

Feels Buying Vowels

Author:Emo Philips

“We spent a long time learning the craft of songwriting, Roger Glover and I, for a few years before we joined Deep Purple. You learn about the percussive value of words, and you learn about rhyme and meter. You learn that you can't transform a poem into a song lyric, mostly because the spoken shape of words is different than the sung shape of words. You wouldn't use the vowel 'U' or the vowel sound 'ooo' for a high note for example, its very difficult.”

Years Long Different Use Values Song Difficult Sound Example Shapes Long Time Notes Crafts Songwriting Rhyme Purple Roger Meter Vowels High Notes Deep Purple

Author:Ian Gillan

“When you hear Portuguese, if you're listening fleetingly, it's as if you're hearing Russian, which never happens with Spanish. Because the Portuguese and the Russians share the open vowels and the dark "L," the "owL" sound.”

Ifs Happens Sound Dark Share Listening Hearing Owl Portuguese Vowels

Author:Gregory Rabassa

“When you make a melody that doesn't come with words from the get-go, sometimes you're just thinking about random vowel sounds that go with it - and it's really, really hard to write lyrics that actually obey the vowel sounds.”

Thinking Writing Sometimes Hard Sound Melody Vowels

Author:David Longstreth

“We can translate word and letter into color - [Arthur] Rimbaud stated that in his color vowels, words quote "words" can be read in silent color.”

Color Letters Silent Translate Arthur Vowels

Author:William S. Burroughs

“Our children learn the phonetic method, which is why they're very good spellers, I suppose. Because rather than ABC or just saying a word, they'll have to go a as in apple and all the other a's there are in the English language. They learn that when they're four. Children all over America can tell you that a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y are vowels. But you ask them about that "sometimes y," and they can't tell you.”

Children Sometimes America Asks Language Four Our Children Method Very Good Apples English Language Just Saying Vowels

Author:Marva Collins

“You can't find me 20 children in Chicago, I don't care which section you go in - you can be on Michigan Avenue or here - and they won't be able to tell you that y is a vowel when it's the final syllable in a word, as in Nancy and icy. And no one bothers to teach the rules anymore - "i before e except after c."”

Children Care Able Teach Finals Don't Care I Don't Care Bother Chicago Sections Find Me Avenues Michigan Syllables Icy Nancy Vowels

Author:Marva Collins

“'Y' is about the weakest letter of all. 'Y' can't make up its mind if it's a vowel or a consonant, can it?”

Ifs Mind Letters Vowels Consonants

Author:David Mitchell

“My favorite rhymes are sort of half-rhymes where you might just get the vowel sound the same, but it's not really a true rhyme. That gives you far more flexibility to capture the feeling you're trying to express. But sometimes it's best not to have any rhyme.”

Giving Trying Sometimes Feelings Might Sound Half My Favorite Capture Rhyme Flexibility Vowels

Author:Conor Oberst

“My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of someone from Birmingham, and then I was raised in Bedford, which is just north of London. So my accent, if it's possible, makes even less sense to a Brit than to an American.”

Ifs Sound My Family Raised London Tone Accents Liverpool Brits Birmingham Vowels

Author:John Oliver

“[Calvin and Hobbes are playing Scrabble] Calvin: Ha! I've got a great word and it's on a "Double word score" box! Hobbes: "ZQFMGB" isn't a word! It doesn't even have a vowel! Calvin: It is so a word! It's a worm found in New Guinea! Everyone knows that! Hobbes: I'm looking it up. Calvin: You do, and I'll look up that 12-letter word you played with all the Xs and Js! Hobbes: What's your score for ZQFMGB? Calvin: 957.”

Knows Looks Found Letters Boxes Look Up Score Worms Guinea Hobbes Vowels Scrabble

Author:Bill Watterson

“Bill Door was impressed. Miss Flitworth could actually give the word "revenue", which had two vowels and one diphthong, all the peremptoriness of the word "scum.”

Giving Two Doors Missing Bills Impressed Revenue Scum Vowels

Author:Terry Pratchett

“Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.”

Mind Humans Reality Spiritual Human Mind New Earth Vowels Vocal Cords

Book:A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Source: A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Where were they from originally? The Seabolts?" "I don't know, Idaho, Oklahoma, Iowa. One of those red-neck states with vowels on both ends." "You mean like Alaska?”

Knows Mean Ends States Red Necks Alaska Iowa Oklahoma Idaho Vowels

Book:Play with Fire

Source: Play with Fire

“With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.”

Speak Gun Teeth Barrels Vowels

Author:Chuck Palahniuk

“Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ay, And that bare vowel ay shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice. I am not I,if there be such an ay, Or those eyes shut,that make thee answer ay: If he be slain say ay,or if not,no: Brief sounds,determine of my weal or woe.”

Ifs Eye Sound Answers Determine Thee Poison Woe Juliet Vowels

Book:Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet. Othello. Appendixes

Source: Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet. Othello. Appendixes

“Imagine a poem written with such enormous three-dimensional words that we had to invent a smaller word to reference each of the big ones; that we had to rewrite the whole thing in shorthand, smashing it into two dimensions, just to talk about it. Or don’t imagine it. Look outside. Human language is our attempt at navigating God’s language; it is us running between the lines of His epic, climbing on the vowels and building houses out of the consonants.”

“Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?”

Source: A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Vowels were something else. He didn't like them and they didn't like him. There were only five of them, but they seemed to be everywhere. Why, you could go through twenty words without bumping into some of the shyer consonants, but it seemed as if you couldn't tiptoe past a syllable without waking up a vowel. Consonants, you know pretty much where you stood, but you could never trust a vowel.”

Ifs Knows Past Five Wake Up Twenties Waking Syllables Never Trust Tiptoes Vowels Consonants

Author:Jerry Spinelli

“Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview)”

Soul Color Speech Letters Interviews Alphabet Vowels Penthouses

Author:Patti Smith

“Say something in Mandarin,” said Tessa, with a smile. Jem said something that sounded like a lot of breathy vowels and consonants run together, his voice rising and falling melodically: “Ni hen piao liang.” “What did you say?” Tessa was curious. “I said your hair is coming undone — here,” he said, and reached out and tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the blood spill hot up into her face, and was glad for the dimness of the carriage. “You have to be careful with it,” he said, taking his hand back, slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek.”

“I couldn't think of anything to say. I was idiotically entranced by the way he said "Grace." The tone of it. The way his lips formed the vowels. The timbre of his voice stuck in my head like music.”

Thinking Way Said Voice Grace Lips Stuck Tone Vowels Timbre

Book:Shiver

Source: Shiver

“It's a wonder that any mother ever called a daughter Dinah again. But some did. Maybe you guessed that there was more to me than the voiceless cipher in the text. Maybe you heard it in the music of my name: the first vowel high and clear, as when a mother calls to her child at dusk; the second sound soft, for whispering secrets on pillows. Dee-nah.”

Firsts Children Mother Names Sound Secret Wonder Clear Heard Daughter Pillow Whispering Dusk Voiceless Vowels Ciphers

Author:Anita Diament

“Slowly my body grows a single sound, slowly I become a bell, an oval, disembodied vowel, I grow, an owl, an aureole, white fire poesia "Metamorfosi, I. Luna”

Body Grows Sound White Fire Bells Owl Oval Vowels

Author:Derek Walcott

“Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”

Music Missing Jazz Jazz Music Playing Music Missing You Vowels Scrabble Playing Jazz Bops Jazz Records

Author:Duke Ellington

“Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants.”

Men Sound Animal Brutes Vowels Consonants

Book:Specimens of the table talk

Source: Specimens of the table talk

“The big political news, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he's running for governor of California, and already, people are chanting, 'Four more vowels, four more vowels.”

People Bigs Running Political Four News California Governors Chanting Schwarzenegger Vowels

Author:Craig Kilborn

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Vowels Quotes