“
What do you want?"
"You," he said, his voice lowering an octave. "I want you, Dutch, body and soul. I want you in my bed every night. I want you there when I wake up in the morning. I want your clothes strung across my apartment and your scent on my skin.
”
”
Darynda Jones (Fifth Grave Past the Light (Charley Davidson, #5))
“
What are we going to do kitten?”
My toes curled at the deep octave of his voice. "I don’t know."
“I have a few ideas.”
I cracked a grin. “I'm sure you do.”
“Wanna hear about them? Although, I'm much better at the show part rather than the tell.”
“Somehow, I believe you.”
“If you didn’t, I could always give you a teaser.” He paused, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “You bookish people love teasers, don’t you?
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Onyx (Lux, #2))
“
Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave
”
”
Stephen Fry
“
The raft finally got here," he said.
Calypso snorted. Her eyes might have been red, but it was hard to tell in the moonlight. "You just noticed?"
"But if it only shows up for guys you like-"
"Don't push your luck, Leo Valdez," she said. "I still hate you."
"Okay."
"And you are not coming back here," she insisted. "So don't give me any empty promises."
"How about a full promise?" he said. "Because I'm definitely-"
She grabbed his face and pulled him into a kiss, which effectively shut him up.
For all his joking and flirting, Leo had never kissed a girl before. Well, sisterly pecks on the cheeck from Piper, but that didn't count. This was a real, full-contact kiss. If Leo had had gears and wires in his brain, they would've short-circuited.
Calypso pushed him away. "That didn't happen."
"Okay." His voice sounded an octave higher than usual.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus, #4))
“
The greatest danger of a terrorist's bomb is in the explosion of stupidity that it provokes.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Someone's dead," said Malfoy, and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it. "One of your people...I don't know who, it was dark...I stepped over the body...I was supposed to be waiting up here when you got back, only your Phoenix lot got in the way.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
“
Come now, don't make such a funeral face. It isn't dying that's sad; it's living when you're not happy.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Le Jardin des supplices)
“
The concept that really gets the goat of the gay-hater, the idea that really spins their melon and sickens their stomachs is that most terrible and terrifying of all human notions, love.
That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand. Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the world's full octave.
Love as Agape, Eros and Philos; love as infatuation, obsession and lust; love as torture, euphoria, ecstasy and oblivion (this is beginning to read like a Calvin Klein perfume catalogue); love as need, passion and desire.
”
”
Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot (Memoir, #1))
“
The tendency of modern American women to exclaim 'Hiiiiiiiiiiii!' in soprano octaves and hug each other upon sight can be disconcerting to those unfamiliar with it.
”
”
Kevin Hearne (Hexed (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #2))
“
Of how I belong to you?” Her voice went up an octave.
“Yeah.”
“Well, forget about the verbal arm wrestling! Why don’t you just pee on me and everything I own?!
”
”
Samantha Young (River Cast (The Tale of Lunarmorte, #2))
“
What's going on?" Kynan asked
Luc smiled, which was little more than a baring of his teeth. "She's a warg. She knows I know, but I'm guessing her human buddies don't know. She's afraid I'll tell."
"Are you going to?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
Luc's voice dropped an octave. "Whether or not she gives me what I want."
"And that is?"
"Fifteen minutes. Naked."
"That's blackmail."
Luc snorted. "Wargs call it negotiation."
"So you want fifteen minutes...what will she want?"
"With me?" Luc winked. "Two hours.
”
”
Larissa Ione (Passion Unleashed (Demonica, #3))
“
Did you think I was helping you out of the goodness of my heart? Or am I just the only warlock you know?” (Magnus)
…
“No,” he said now, “but you are the only warlock we know who happens to be dating a friend of ours.” (Jace)
For a moment everyone stared at him-Alec in sheer horror, Magnus un astonished anger, and Clary and Simon in surprise. It was Alec who spoke first, his voice shaking. “Why would you say something like that?”
Jace looked baffled. “Something like what?”
“That I‘m dating-that we‘re-its not true,” Alec said, his voice rising and dropping several octaves as he fought to control it.
Jace looked at him steadily. “I didn’t say he was dating you,” he said, “but funny that you knew just what I meant, isn’t it?”
“We‘re not dating,” Alec said again.
“Oh?” Magnus said. “So you‘re just that friendly with everybody, is that it?”
-pg.241-
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
“
Madam,” said Istvhan, his voice dropping nearly an octave, “I have made love. I have had sex. I have bedded, rutted, fucked, and on one occasion, with enthusiastic consent and a great deal of oil, I have sodomized, but I have never, not once, canoodled.
”
”
T. Kingfisher (Paladin's Strength (The Saint of Steel, #2))
“
You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Nowadays we only lose a few dragons a year to the carnivorous plants.” “The what now?” Swordtail said, his voice rising an octave. “CARNIVOROUS WHATS?
”
”
Tui T. Sutherland (The Poison Jungle (Wings of Fire, #13))
“
I know all women are supposed to be strong enough now to strangle presidents and patriarchies between their powerful thighs, but it doesn't work that way. Many of us were actually affected, by male systems and male anger, in ways we cannot always articulate or overcome. Sometimes, when the ceiling seems especially low and the past especially close, I think to myself, I did not make it out. I am still there in that place of diminishment, where that voice an octave deeper than mine is telling me what I am.
”
”
Patricia Lockwood (Priestdaddy)
“
In every big-budget science fiction movie there's the moment when a spaceship as large as New York suddenly goes to light speed. A twanging noise like a wooden ruler being plucked over the edge of a desk, a dazzling refraction of light, and suddenly the stars have all been stretched out thin and it's gone. This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve-mile-long spaceship, it was an off-white twenty-year-old motor scooter. And you didn't have the special rainbow effects. And it probably wasn't going at more than two hundred miles an hour. And instead of a pulsing whine sliding up the octaves, it just went putputputputput ...
VROOOOSH.
But it was exactly like that anyway.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
“
I shook again, tasted plum, and suddenly the words were pouring out of me."She said I sang before I spoke. She said when I was just a baby she had the habit of humming when she held me. Nothing like a song. Just a descending third. Just a soothing sound. Then one day she was walking me around the camp, and she heard me echo it back to her. Two octaves higher. A tiny piping third. She said it was my first song. We sang it back and forth to each other. For years."I choked and clenched my teeth.
"You can say it,"Auri said softly."It's okay if you say it."
"I'm never going to see her again,"I choked out. Then I began to cry in earnest.
"It's okay,"Auri said softly."I'm here. You're safe.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
“
Wind as old as Rome outside my window, inky fleece clouds against charcoal crushed velvet skies, fall feels soulful, like a LaBelle octave.
”
”
Brandi L. Bates (Soledad)
“
Oh, my god, I don't know. What do you want?"
"You," he said, his voice lowering an octave. "I want you, Dutch, body and soul. I want you in my bed every night. I want you there when I wake up in the morning. I want your clothes strung across my apartment and your scent on my skin.
”
”
Darynda Jones (Fifth Grave Past the Light (Charley Davidson, #5))
“
Didn't you," he asked, "have me
exorcised?"
"Me?" My own voice rocketed up about ten octaves. "Me? Jesse, of course not. I would never do that. I mean, you know I would never do something like that. That kid Jack did it. Your girlfriend Maria made him do it. She was trying to get rid of you. She told Jack you were bothering me, and he didn't know any better, so he exorcised you, and then Felix Diego threw me off the porch roof, and Jesse, they found your body, I mean your bones, and I saw them and I threw up all over the side of the house, and Spike really misses you and I was just thinking, you know, if you wanted to come back, you could, because that's why I've got this rope, so we can find our way back.
”
”
Meg Cabot (Darkest Hour (The Mediator, #4))
“
And why should I believe you?”
His tone dropped to a dangerous octave. “Because there are very few people I have never lied to.” He passed me to open the door. “You are one of them.”
He stalked down the hall toward the elevator without even a glance back.
”
”
Lisa Kessler (New Moon (Moon, #8))
“
Why, flowers are violent, cruel, terrible, splendid...like love.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Torture Garden)
“
I desire her and I hate her. I would like to take her in my arms and embrace her till she smothered, till she was crushed and I could drink death from her gushing veins.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Torture Garden)
“
Question for your life: If love existed an octave above where your vocal range ended, would you buy a dog whistle to get my attention?
”
”
Jarod Kintz ($3.33 (the title is the price))
“
Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will always see that word: murder—immortally inscribed upon the pediment of that vast slaughterhouse—humanity.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
While I was an honorable man in her eyes, she did not love me. But the minute she understood what I was, when she breathed the true and foul odor of my soul, love was born in her – for she does love me! Well, well! There is nothing real, then, except evil.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Listening to one's self as well as to others is a sacred act of healing. There is a higher octave of listening that hears the wisdom within the words.
”
”
Cheryl Hamada
“
After tidying up, Adela would plunge the rooms into semidarkness by drawing down the linen blinds. All colors immediately fell an octave lower, the room filled with shadows, as if it had sunk to the bottom of the sea and the light was reflected in mirrors of green water–and the heat of the day began to breathe on the blinds as they stirred slightly in their daydreams.
”
”
Bruno Schulz (The Street of Crocodiles)
“
Big fat hairy monkey, hands a couple of octaves wide?
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Soul Music (Discworld, #16; Death, #3))
“
My mother says it is totally fine
if I blow off steam
as long as I speak in an octave
my kindness can still reach.
”
”
Andrea Gibson (The Madness Vase)
“
Then a shadow swooped under me, and thump - I was on Blackjack's back. It wasn't the most comfortable landing. In fact, when I yelled "OW!" my voice was an octave higher than usual.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
“
Mattie loves to read. Was born to read. I love to listen to Mattie read. The way her voice rises two octaves above everyone else's. The way the words collide-an endless train of sounds that doesn't require breath.
”
”
Carmen Rodrigues (34 Pieces of You)
“
Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding. Aren't the gods monsters? Isn't a man of genius a monster, like a tiger or a spider, like all individuals who live beyond social lies, in the dazzling and divine immortality of things? Why, I too then-am a monster!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Torture Garden)
“
At these words, the fathers of the fifty boys cried out aloud; the mothers repeated their exclamations an octave higher; whilst the rest, without knowing the cause, soon drowned the voices of both, with still louder lamentations of their own.
”
”
William Beckford (Vathek)
“
THANK ALL THE SPARKLES FOR THAT! Now you just need to tell her you’re helplessly in love with her so she can be like”—Ro shifted her voice up an octave and clasped her hands against her heart—“ ‘Oh, Hunkyhair, I never realized you felt that way, even though it was ridiculously obvious to everyone else. And I’ve been in love with you forever—I just didn’t know it because I’m super oblivious. I’m sorry I wasted so much time crushing on Captain Perfect—come here, let’s do all the smooching ever!
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
“
I did not know what she suffered from, but I knew that her malady must have been horrible; I knew that from the way she used to embrace me.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Le Calvaire)
“
DETCHANT (n.)
That part of a hymn (usually a few notes at the end of a verse) where the tune goes so high or low that you suddenly have to change octaves to accommodate it.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Meaning of Liff (Meaning of Liff, #1))
“
Everyone has his reasons." Octave (Jean Renoir) in "The Rules of the Game.
”
”
Jean Renoir
“
Women’s voices always rise two octaves when they talk to cleaning women or cats.
”
”
Lucia Berlin (A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories)
“
Did you just see that bloke with a pitchfork?” Hawthorne’s voice had jumped up half an octave, his eyes grown wide. “Who even owns a pitchfork? I don’t even know what a pitchfork is for!
”
”
Jessica Townsend (Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor, #3))
“
Hilly raises her voice about three octaves higher when she talks to coloured people. Elizabeth smiles like she's talking to a child, although certainly not her own. I am starting to notice things.
”
”
Kathryn Stockett (The Help)
“
One evening, as they wrapped up a meeting in her office shortly after he joined the company, she lapsed into a more natural-sounding young woman’s voice. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she told him as she got up from her chair, her pitch several octaves higher than usual. In
”
”
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
“
Woman possesses the cosmic force of an element, an invincible force of destruction, like nature's. She is, in herself alone, all nature! Being the matrix of life, she is by that very fact the matrix of death - since it is from death that life is perpetually reborn, and since to annihilate death would be to kill life at its only fertile source.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
I don't know notes or octaves or the difference between sharp and flat, but I know music makes everything more.
”
”
Sarah Tomp (My Best Everything)
“
And she laughed, a full octave, descending from high C like chimes.
”
”
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1))
“
I was always fishing for something on the radio. Just like trains and bells, it was part of the soundtrack of my life. I moved the dial up and down and Roy Orbison's voice came blasting out of the small speakers. His new song, "Running Scared," exploded into the room.
Orbison, though, transcended all the genres - folk, country, rock and roll or just about anything. His stuff mixed all the styles and some that hadn't even been invented yet. He could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto voice like Frankie Valli in the next. With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop and he meant business. One of his previous songs, "Ooby Dooby" was deceptively simple, but Roy had progressed. He was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he'd start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttring to yourself something like, "Man, I don't believe it." His songs had songs within songs. They shifted from major to minor key without any logic. Orbison was deadly serious - no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn't anything else on the radio like him.
”
”
Bob Dylan (Chronicles, Volume One)
“
Everything she heard, everything she saw seemed to be in disagreement with her own manner of understanding and feeling. To her, the sun did not appear red enough, the nights pale enough, the skies deep enough. Her fleeting conception of things and beings condemned her fatally to a perversion of her senses, to vagaries of the spirit and left her nothing but the torment of an unachieved longing, the torture of unfulfilled desires.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Le Calvaire)
“
Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was “always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody,” ready to “jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up.” And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in “a good scrap.” It brought out “new ways of looking at things,” helped “round off the corners.” It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything.
”
”
David McCullough (The Wright Brothers)
“
I sit up straighter and puff out my chest a little bit, unsure why I'm doing so even as I do it. I know when I speak I'll have dropped my voice an octave to make myself seem more manly, and when I shake he hand, my grip will be tight and strong. Stupid, I know, but I'm a guy. It's what we do.
”
”
T.J. Klune (Who We Are (Bear, Otter, and the Kid, #2))
“
Helen, don’t.”
“I thought it was only a misunderstanding. I thought if I spoke to you directly, everything would be s-sorted out, and—” Another sob choked her. She was so consumed by emotion that she was only vaguely aware of Rhys hovering around her, reaching for her and snatching his hands back.
“No. Don’t cry. For God’s sake, Helen—”
“I didn’t mean to push you away. I didn’t know what to do. How can I make you want me again?”
She expected a jeering reply, or perhaps even a pitying one. The last thing she expected was his shaken murmur.
“I do want you, cariad. I want you too damned much.”
She blinked at him through a bewildered blur, breathing in mortifying hiccups, like a child. In the next moment, he had hauled her firmly against him.
“Hush, now.” His voice dropped to a deeper octave, a brush of dark velvet against her ears. “Hush, bychan, little one, my dove. Nothing is worth your tears.”
“You are.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Marrying Winterborne (The Ravenels, #2))
“
Alas, the gates of life never swing open except upon death, never open except upon the palaces and
gardens of death. And the universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden… What I
say today, and what I heard, exists and cries and howls beyond this garden, which is no more than a
symbol to me of the entire earth.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
E un suflet. Și când dai de o femeie cu suflet, e bine s-o păstrezi!... Căci pentru sfâșierile sufletului tău găsește oricând într-al ei petice să ți le cârpească.
”
”
Octav Dessila (Uitam prea repede)
“
In that atrocious second I understood that desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual idea of hell and its horror.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
A lost bird appeared in the court and was half an hour jumping around between the spikenard. It sang a progressive note, rising an octave at a time, until it became so acute that it was necessary to imagine it.
”
”
Gabriel García Márquez (In Evil Hour)
“
What else do you do there except lie—lie to yourself and others, lie about everything you recognize in your heart to be true? You’re obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretences of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That’s the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
Yes, there are some backs on the street
which cry for the knife.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
Nowadays we only lose a few dragons a year to the carnivorous plants.” “The what now?” Swordtail said, his voice rising an octave. “CARNIVOROUS
”
”
Tui T. Sutherland (The Poison Jungle (Wings of Fire, #13))
“
The raft finally got here,” he said. Calypso snorted. Her eyes might have been red, but it was hard to tell in the moonlight. “You just noticed?” “But if it only shows up for guys you like—” “Don’t push your luck, Leo Valdez,” she said. “I still hate you.” “Okay.” “And you are not coming back here,” she insisted. “So don’t give me any empty promises.” “How about a full promise?” he said. “Because I’m definitely—” She grabbed his face and pulled him into a kiss, which effectively shut him up. For all his joking and flirting, Leo had never kissed a girl before. Well, sisterly pecks on the cheek from Piper, but that didn’t count. This was a real, full-contact kiss. If Leo had had gears and wires in his brain, they would’ve short-circuited. Calypso pushed him away. “That didn’t happen.” “Okay.” His voice sounded an octave higher than usual. “Get out of here.” “Okay.” She turned, wiping her eyes furiously, and stormed up the beach, the breeze tousling her hair. Leo wanted to call to her, but the sail caught the full force of the wind, and the raft cleared the beach. He struggled to align the guidance console. By the time Leo looked back, the island of Ogygia was a dark line in the distance, their campfire pulsing like a tiny orange heart. His lips still tingled from the kiss. That didn’t happen, he told himself. I can’t be in love with an immortal girl. She definitely can’t be in love with me. Not possible. As his raft skimmed over the water, taking him back to the mortal world, he understood a line from the Prophecy better—an oath to keep with a final breath. He understood how dangerous oaths could be. But Leo didn’t care. “I’m coming back for you, Calypso,” he said to the night wind. “I swear it on the River Styx.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus, #4))
“
I was thinking of love,' I replied in a tone of reproach, 'and here you are talking to me again—forever—about torture!'
'Doubtless! since it's the same thing—
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
In my past life, I was a mermaid. I lived deep in the ocean, swimming free, eating crustaceans, and singing five-octave ballads. My notes caused ripples in the sea-whales, turtles, and seahorses alike gathered for my daily concerts. But on land, I struggle to breathe. Humans don't understand my pescatarian diet, and singing is a concept, not an aspiration."
- Enchanted
”
”
Tiffany D. Jackson (Grown)
“
For Gascoigne and Clinch were not so dissimilar in temperament, and even in their differences, showed a harmony of sorts - with Gascoigne as the upper octave, the clearer, brighter sound, and Clinch as the bass-note, thrumming.
”
”
Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
“
If u are tree, i'll be your shadow,
If you free, i'll be your hobbie,
If you fly,i'll be your wings,
If you cry,i'll be your tears,
If you are high,i'll be Your wine,
If you are mad,I'll be You Love,
If You are Life,I'll Be your Soul!
OctavE
”
”
GopS OctavE
“
The average female handspan is between seven and eight inches,2 which makes the standard forty-eight-inch keyboard something of a challenge. Octaves on a standard keyboard are 7.4 inches wide, and one study found that this keyboard disadvantages 87% of adult female pianists.3 Meanwhile, a 2015 study which compared the handspan of 473 adult pianists to their ‘level of acclaim’ found that all twelve of the pianists considered to be of international renown had spans of 8.8 inches or above.
”
”
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
“
After two years' absence she finally returned to chilly Europe, a trifle weary, a trifle sad, disgusted by our banal entertainments, our shrunken landscapes, our impoverished lovemaking. Her soul had remained over there, among the gigantic, poisonous flowers. She missed the mystery of old temples and the ardor of a sky blazing with fever, sensuality and death. The better to relive all these magnificent, raging memories, she became a recluse, spending entire days lying about on tiger skins, playing with those pretty Nepalese knives 'which dissipate one's dreams'.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
The Occidental snobbery which is invading us, the gunboats, rapid-fire guns, long-range rifles, explosives... what else? Everything which makes death collective, administrative and bureaucratic - all the filth of your progress, in fact - is destroying, little by little, our beautiful traditions of the past.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
To Priests, Soldiers, Judges- to men who rear, lead or govern men I dedicate these pages of murder and blood.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
Cœlio : Que tu es heureux d'être fou !
Octave : Que tu es fou de ne pas être heureux !
”
”
Alfred de Musset (Les Caprices de Marianne)
“
I'll get it," said Jough in his man-of-the-house voice, a full octave lower than his regular voice.
”
”
Cuthbert Soup (A Whole Nother Story)
“
He’s pre-med, Lauren.” Her voice dropped an octave at “pre-med,” like it was the rarest form of Jewish male unicorn a mother could hope for.
”
”
Hettie Ivers (Seer: A Werelock Evolution Series Duet (Book 1 of 2))
“
Aunt Léonie who, after the death of her husband, my Uncle Octave, no longer wished to leave, first Combray, then within Combray her house, then her bedroom, then her bed and no longer 'came down', always lying in an uncertain state of grief, physical debility, illness, obsession and piety.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1))
“
On this piano the vibrations of each ‘whole tone’ and of each ‘half tone’ of any octave pass from one to another strictly according to the law of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh and thus their vibrations, as occurs always and everywhere in the Universe, mutually help one another to evolve or involve.
”
”
G.I. Gurdjieff (Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson)
“
Oh poor Octave, no luck at all, as usual," said Madame Rocher, "he is still with his regiment, still only a captain. Of course, if it hadn't been for this wretched war, he would be at least a colonel by now.
”
”
Nancy Mitford (The Blessing)
“
History was an artist, maintaining the idea but changing the details, like a composer keeping the same theme but dulling it to a minor or lifting by an octave, now crooning it with violins, now blaring it on trumpets.
”
”
George R. Stewart (Earth Abides)
“
I am no vampire.I am Carpathian, and you are my lifemate. I will protect you with my life. I will always see to your happiness."
She took a deep breath for control, then let it escape slowly. "We are not lifemates.I did not choose." She held on to that fact, her only hope.
"We can discuss this at a more opportune time."
She nodded warily. "I'll meet you tomorrow then."
His silent laughter filled her mind. Low. Amused. Frustratingly male. "You will come with me now." His voice lowered an octave, became warm honey, compelling, hypnotic, so mesmerizing it was impossible to fight.
Savannah dropped her forehead against the muscles of his chest. Tears were burning in her eyes and throat. "I'm afraid of you,Gregori," she admitted painfully. "I can't live the life of a Carpathian. I'm like my mother. I'm too independent, and I need my own life."
"I know of your fears, ma petite. I know your every thought. The bond between us is strong enough to cross oceans.We can deal with your fears together.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
Do you know what made me fall in love with you?" George asked suddenly. Anne shook her head, puzzled that he should ask her this now. "I heard you laugh, down the hall, just before I got to Spanish class that first day. I couldn't see you. I just heard this fabulous laugh, like a whole octave, top to bottom. And I had to hear it again.
”
”
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1))
“
It was important to avoid attachment to material objects. Our consumer desires are unhealthy.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Octave)
“
On the street, men appeared to me like mad ghosts, old skeletons out of joint, whose bones, badly strung together, were falling to the pavement with a strange noise. I saw the necks turning on top of broken spinal columns, hanging upon disjointed clavicles, arms sundered from the trunks, the trunks themselves losing their shape. And all these scraps of human bodies, stripped of their flesh by death, were rushing upon one another, forever spurred on by a homicidal fever, forever driven by pleasure, and they were fighting over foul carrion.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
In a seven-tone scale the eighth note is the octave, twice the pitch of the first note, and so signals the movement to a new level. This may be why, in religious symbolism, the eighth step is often associated with spiritual evolution or salvation.
”
”
John Martineau (Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology)
“
Come back." It was a demand.
"No."
"You want to be there. You love it."
"How would you know? You never look at me." I picked up my not-Shirley Temple and took a sip. It was strong, but it also tasted like bravery.
"I see you, Anna." His voice lowered an octave, as though he were endeavoring to control his temper; his hand on the bar inched closer. "It's impossible not to see you.
”
”
Penny Reid (Kissing Tolstoy (Dear Professor, #1))
“
She makes a stone-face, drops her voice an octave.
-No. No. No. My name is Joe Pitt and I don't do nuthin' I don't want to do and I won't even listen because I don't know a good thing when I have it and I'd rather be all fucked up and tragic and go hurt people.
”
”
Charlie Huston (Every Last Drop (Joe Pitt, #4))
“
Ucho w liczbach:" A youthful ear can hear ten octaves of sound, spanning a range from about thirty to twelve tousand vibrations a second. The avarege ear can distinguish sounds a seventeenth of a tone apart. From top to bottom we hear about fourtheen tousend discriminable tones.
”
”
Oliver Sacks (Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain)
“
I know...but just the same" – this is Octave Mannoni's formulation of the structure of the fetish, and more generally of fetishistic thinking. The fetishist knows that an old, cherished belief is false but nonetheless continues to believe it. The nonetheless is not articulated, it is the fetish.
”
”
Janet Beizer
“
Look here, before you and around you! There is not a grain of sand that has not been bathed in blood, and what is that grain of sand itself, if not the dust of death? But how rich this blood is, and how fertile is the dust!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
After all, Christmastide is the time of year for warming brandies, for assertive burgundies and meaty Medoc wines, and for gladsome whiskies. And an Islay malt: well, this is the octave of St Andrew, and you will doubtless recall that he is not only the patron saint of Alba, of Scotland, but was also a fisherman. How better to toast my favorite apostle (he being all the things I personally am not, starting with humble and self-effacing) than with the sea-salty dram of an Islay whisky?
”
”
Markham Shaw Pyle
“
Octave staggered to his feet, his stick swinging back to point toward Nicholas. He felt a wave of heat and saw spellfire crackle along the length of polished wood, preparing itself for another explosive burst. Crack was moving toward Octave, but Madeline shouted, "Get back!"
Nicholas ducked, as a shot exploded behind him. Octave fell backward on the carpet and the blue lightning flared once and vanished with a sharp crackle.
Nicholas looked at Madeline. She stepped forward, holding a small double-action revolver carefully and frowning down at the corpse. He said, "I wondered what you were waiting for."
"You were in my line of fire, dear," she said, preoccupied. "But look.
”
”
Martha Wells (The Death of the Necromancer (Ile-Rien #2))
“
In 1865 English chemist John Newlands discovered that when the chemical elements are arranged according to atomic weight, those with similar properties occur at every eighth element, like notes of music. This discovery became known as the Law of Octaves, and it helped lead to the development of the Periodic Law of chemical elements still used today.
”
”
Will Buckingham (The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained (DK Big Ideas))
“
You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you find absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
The journey is the reward
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Octave)
“
Every party has its criminals and its fools, because every party has its men.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
For to arrive somewhere means to die!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
Was ich den Pyrenäen am meisten vorwerfe, ist, dass sie ein Gebirge sind ...
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
The computer immediately translates the result. “Original crew was twenty-three. Now is only me.” That octave-drop…I think it’s emotion. “They…did they die?” “Yes.
”
”
Andy Weir (Project Hail Mary)
“
Follow the rot,” he gurgles, his voice dropping several octaves. “Flies love rot.
”
”
Chuck Tingle (Camp Damascus)
“
I can think of a few ways I wouldn't mind you taking control." He dropped his voice a few octaves, making his already deep voice even more delicious.
”
”
Katie Reus (Falling For His Mate (Crescent Moon, #6))
“
Sometimes you finally understand something so profoundly life-changing your whole body starts to tingle. It’s like you’re made of vibrations that just jumped an octave or two.
”
”
Brownell Landrum (Repercussions: DUET stories Volume IV - Adult Version)
“
Play? You want me to play polo?” My voice rose an octave. “You want me to ride a horse?
”
”
Lucy Lennox (Prince of Lies)
“
If anybody can appreciate fine music, it's me. I mean who else can hit multiple octaves with their armpits?
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
The note is the same, I fancy, be the octave high or low.
”
”
Rebecca Harding Davis (Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories)
“
The world is going too far in these days. As my poor Octave used to say, we have forgotten God too often, and He is taking vengeance upon us.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7])
“
I made a decision,” he said, his voice dipping an octave. “That the next time I make love to a woman, she will be the last one.” He opened his eyes. “The last one ever,” he clarified.
”
”
Jessica Lemmon (Hard to Handle (Love in the Balance #2))
“
She slid a look toward him, one edge of her mouth tilting up. "My Mama told me to watch out for boys like you."
"Your Mama was right," his voice dropped an octave, "but I am not a boy.
”
”
Mary Jane Hathaway (These Sheltering Walls (Men of Cane River, #2))
“
VOTERS STRIKE!
...above all, remember that he who solicits your vote is by that very fact revealed as a scoundrel, since in exchange for your advantage and fortune he promises a cornucopia of marvels he'll never deliver because he hasn't the power to deliver them. the man you elect represents neither your misery nor your aspirations- nor anything else of yours- but rather his own interests, which are all opposed to yours...do not imagine that the sorry spectacle at which you assist today is peculiar to one epoch or one regime, and that it will pass away. all epochs and all regimes are worth the same- that is, they are worthless. so go home, my good chap, and go on strike against universal suffrage. I tell you, you've nothing to lose... and at least it should keep you amused for a while. I tell you, good chap! go home! go on strike!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
And another thing—when you talk to that pompous ass on the phone, do not go all syrupy.” He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at her from his superior height.
“Syrupy?” she echoed indignantly, outraged at the accusation. “I never sound syrupy.” Her large eyes flashed a warning at him, daring him to pursue his point.
He dared to. “Oh yes, you do.” He clasped his hands together and made a face, his voice rising an octave as he simpered. “Oh, Marie, the flowers are so beautiful. Thomas Ivan gave them to me.” He rolled his eyes as he mimicked her.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Gold (Dark, #3))
“
(Our) thoughts feelings, and loves are a whirlwind. Everywhere life is rushing insanely like a cavalry charge. . . . Everything around a man jumps, dances, gallops in a movement out of phase with his own.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Do you know what made me fall in love with you?" George asked suddenly. Anne shook her head, puzzles that he should ask her this now. "I heard you laugh down the hall, just before I got to Spanish class that first day. I couldn't see you, I just heard this fabulous laugh, like a whole octave, top to bottom, and I had to hear it again." She put her fork down gently and came around the table to stand by his chair. His hands went around her hips and she pulled his head to her belly, cradling it against her body. "Let's live forever, old man," she said, smoothing the silver hair away from his face and bending to kiss him. He grinned up at her. "Okay," he said amiably, "but only because it'll really piss off that insurance guy you bought the annuities from." And she laughed, a full octave, descending from high C like chimes.
”
”
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1))
“
Wanting his mind on other matters, she deliiberately challenged his statement. "You don't know so much about me. There was a man once. He was crazy about me." She tried to look wordly. "Absolutely crazy for me."
His answering laughter was warm against her neck, her throat. His lips touched the skin over her pulse and skimmed lightly up to her ear. "Are you, by any chance, referring to that foppish boy with the orange hair and spiked collar? Dragon something?"
Savannah gasped and pulled away to glare at im. "How could you possibly know about him? I dated him last year."
Gregori nuzzled her neck, inhaling her fragrance, his hand sliding over her shoulder, moving gently over her satin skin to take possession of her breast. "He wore boots and rode a Harley." His breath came out in a rush as his palm cupped the soft weight, his thumb brushing her nipple into a hard peak.
The feel of his large hand-so strong, so warm and possessive on her-sent heat curling through her body. Desire rose sharply. He was seducing her with tenderness. Savannah didn't want it to happen. Her body felt better, but the soreness was there to remind her where this could all lead. Her hand caught at his wrist. "How did you find out about Dragon?" she asked, desperate to distract him, to distract herself. How could he make her body burn for his when she was so afraid of him, of having sex with him?
"Making love," he corrected, his voice husky, caressing, betraying the ease with which his mind moved like a shadow through hers."And to answer your question, I live in you, can touch you whenever I wish.I knew about all of them. Every damn one." He growled the worrds, and her breath caught in her throat. "He was the only one you thought of kissing." His mouth touched hers. Gently. Lightly. Returned for more. Coaxing, teasing, until she opened to him. He stole her breath, her reason, whirling her into a world of feeling.Bright colors and white-hot heat, the room falling away until there was only his broad shoulders,strong arms, hard body, and perfect,perfect mouth.
When he lifted his head, Savannah nearly pulled him back to her.He watched her face,her eyes cloudy with desire, her lips so beautiful, bereft of his. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Savannah? There is such beauty in your soul,I can see it shining in your eyes."
She touched his face, her palm molding his strong jaw. Why couldn't she resist his hungry eyes? "I think you're casting a spell over me. I can't remember what we were talking about."
Gregori smiled. "Kissing." His teeth nibbled gently at her chin. "Specifically,your wanting to kiss that orange-bearded imbecile."
"I wanted to kiss every one of them," she lied indignantly.
"No,you did not.You were hoping that silly fop would wipe my taste from your mouth for all eternity." His hand stroked back the fall of hair around her face.He feathered kisses along the delicate line of her jaw. "It would not have worked,you know.As I recall,he seemed to have a problem getting close to you."
Her eyes smoldered dangerously. "Did you have anything to do with his allergies?" She had wanted someone, anyone,to wipe Gregori's taste from her mouth,her soul.
He raised his voice an octave. "Oh, Savannah, I just have to taste your lips," he mimicked. Then he went into a sneezing fit. "You haven't ridden until you've ridden on a Harley,baby." He sneezed, coughed, and gagged in perfect imitation.
Savannah pushed his arm, forgetting for a moment her bruised fist. When it hurt, she yelped and glared accusingly at him. "It was you doing all that to him! That poor man-you damaged his ego for life. Each time he touched me, he had a sneezing fit."
Gregori raised an eyebrow, completely unrepentant. "Technically,he did not lay a hand on you.He sneezed before he could get that close.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
French editor Octave Uzanne called it “that Gordian city, so excessive, so satanic.”27 Paul Lindau, an author and publisher, described it as “a gigantic peepshow of utter horror, but extraordinarily to the point.”28
”
”
Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America)
“
Alexander looked her over up and down. Tatiana exuded a porous, evanescent, yet everlasting warmth; her very presence, her satin face in his palm made his back hurt less. Her radiant eyes, her flushed cheeks, her slightly parted loving lips…Alexander stared at her, his eyes wide open, his soul wide open, his adoring heart hurting exquisitely. “You are an angel sent from heaven, aren’t you?” An electric smile lit up her face. “And you don’t know the half of it,” she whispered. “You don’t know what your Tania has been cooking up here.” In her delight she nearly squealed. “What have you been cooking up? No, don’t sit up. I want to feel your face.” “Shura, I can’t. I’m practically on top of you. We need to be very careful.” The smile faded an octave. “Dimitri walks around here all the time. Walks in, out, checks on you, leaves, comes back. What’s he worried about? He was quite surprised to find me here.” “He’s not the only one. How did you get here?” “All part of my plan, Alexander.” “What plan is this, Tatiana?” She whispered, “To be with you when I die of old age.” “Oh, that plan.
”
”
Paullina Simons (The Bronze Horseman (The Bronze Horseman, #1))
“
Sometimes it's hard because I don't like to hurt people's feelings. So there have been times when a friend will get a haircut and I will see it and my initial reaction is "Oh my God, you look like a streetwalker who got caught in a wind tunnel." But I obviously can't say that because that would be an insult to streetwalkers. So I have to say, "I love it! It looks great!" But when I say it my voice goes up about three octaves. "It looks greee-aaattt!" So I'm certain they know I'm lying.
How come when we lie our voices go up so many octaves? It's a dead giveaway. It happens when we dole out compliments we don't mean and it happens when we say things like "You didn't have to get my anything!" or "What do you mean you weren't invited to my party? You're always invited!" Everyone knows what those mean. "You definitely had to get me something" and "You haven't been invited back to the house since the urn incident of '04." And it's a mathematical fact: the higher the octave, the bigger the lie. "I didn't even hear my phone ring!" is usually like a four on the scale. "You think I'm sleeping with someone else?" is off the charts.
I can tell when people are lying to me when they start their sentence with "I have to be honest with you." They may as well say, "Listen, I'm about to lie straight to your face." Why do people need to clarify when they're being honest? Does that mean everything else they've ever said has been a lie? Yesterday they said they liked my sweater but they didn't say they were being honest. Does that mean they hated it?
It's so strange to me. It almost feels like they're giving me the option to not hear the truth. As if when they say, "I have to be honest with you," I might say, "No, no. Please. Only lies right now.
”
”
Ellen DeGeneres (Seriously... I'm Kidding)
“
Monsieur Octave de Camps, he said, having wasted his means on a certain Madame Firmiani, was now reduced to teaching mathematics for a living, while awaiting his uncle's death, not daring to let him know of his dissipations.
”
”
Honoré de Balzac (Madame Firmiani)
“
UMPTEEN people jolted themselves toward the still-lifeless body stocking of a peanut butter heiress. A kind of religious fervor displayed itself on the hard-breathing senior citizens of Cape Codpiece. Twice annually, they have gathered for the last two hundred years in a display which has to be seen to be conceived. Gnashing their gums in a fit of detergent, they call upon “Almighty Greg” to “send them a Kennedy.” This localized custom comes as rather a shock to many people; still, you can’t please everyone. Each year the used underwear of a prominent citizen is worshiped. This year it is Sylvia de Bortcha’s body stocking that has risen to the occasion. “I have been chosen because of my breeding habits,” she said to a delighted group of well-diggers. “I have worn these off and on for the past year and a half,” she proclaimed, her voice reaching an octave or more. The crowd went wild. “If this
”
”
John Lennon (Skywriting by Word of Mouth)
“
For a whole fortnight my mind and my fingers have been working around me like two lost souls. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Byron, Hugo, Lamertine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them, meditate on them, devour them with fury; besides this, I practise four to five hours a day of exercises (thirds, sixths, octaves, tremolos, repetition of notes, cadenzas, etc.). Ah! provided I don't go mad you will find me an artist!
”
”
Franz Liszt
“
In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. Then comes the alchemist Mind who transmutes the symbols. The sparsely spread nuclei of electric force become a tangible solid; their restless agitation becomes the warmth of summer; the octave of aethereal vibrations becomes a gorgeous rainbow. Nor does the alchemy stop here. In the transmuted world new significances arise which are scarcely to be traced in the world of symbols; so that it becomes a world of beauty and purpose - and, alas, suffering and evil.
”
”
Arthur Stanley Eddington (The Nature of the Physical World)
“
Morgan tried to laugh, but she sounded like a lunatic. Her voice wrenched up an octave. “Oh no, there isn’t anything wrong. Everything’s fine.” What are you doing? Brent mouthed. She’d been kicked out of high school theater for a reason.
”
”
T.S. Joyce (Protect Mine (Becoming the Wolf, #3))
“
Happy birthday. Your thirteenth is important. Maybe your first really public day. Your thirteenth is the chance for people to recognize that important things are happening to you.
Things have been happening to you for the past half year. You have seven hairs in your left armpit now. Twelve in your right. Hard dangerous spirals of brittle black hair. Crunchy, animal hair. There are now more of the hard curled hairs around your privates than you can count without losing track. Other things. Your voice is rich and scratchy and moves between octaves without any warning. Your face has begun to get shiny when you don’t wash it. And two weeks of a deep and frightening ache this past spring left you with something dropped down from inside: your sack is now full and vulnerable, a commodity to be protected. Hefted and strapped in tight supporters that stripe your buttocks red. You have grown into a new fragility.
And dreams. For months there have been dreams like nothing before: moist and busy and distant, full of unyielding curves, frantic pistons, warmth and a great falling; and you have awakened through fluttering lids to a rush and a gush and a toe-curling scalp-snapping jolt of feeling from an inside deeper than you knew you had, spasms of a deep sweet hurt, the streetlights through your window blinds crackling into sharp stars against the black bedroom ceiling, and on you a dense white jam that lisps between legs, trickles and sticks, cools on you, hardens and clears until there is nothing but gnarled knots of pale solid animal hair in the morning shower, and in the wet tangle a clean sweet smell you can’t believe comes from anything you made inside you.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Consider the Lobster and Other Essays)
“
Have you ever been at a festival when you were sad or ill? Well, then you’ve felt how much your sadness was irritated and exasperated, as by an insult, by the joyful faces and the beauty of things. It’s an intolerable feeling. Think of what it must mean to a victim who is going to die under torture. Think how much the torture is multiplied in his flesh and his soul by all the splendour which surrounds him; and how much more atrocious is his agony, how much more hopelessly atrocious, darling!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
To feel hope you don’t need to be in a great situation. You just need to understand that things will change. Hope is available to all. You don’t need to deny the reality of the present in order to have hope, you just need to know the future is uncertain, and that life contains light as well as dark. We can have our feet right here where we are, while our minds can hear another octave, right over the rainbow. We can be half inside the present, half inside the future. Half in Kansas, half in Oz.
”
”
Matt Haig (The Comfort Book)
“
THANK ALL THE SPARKLES FOR THAT! Now you just need to tell her you’re helplessly in love with her so she can be like”—Ro shifted her voice up an octave and clasped her hands against her heart—“ ‘Oh, Hunkyhair, I never realized you felt that way, even though it was ridiculously obvious to everyone else. And I’ve been in love with you forever—I just didn’t know it because I’m super oblivious. I’m sorry I wasted so much time crushing on Captain Perfect—come here, let’s do all the smooching ever!’
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
“
Listen," he said still breathing hard, "I'm sorry. I have no right to lecture you." His voice warmed with a devastating smile and his voice lowered a sensual octave. Before he had a chance to stop them, his thoughts rolled off his tongue. "But, darlin', you're a mighty tempting sight in those pants. It does things to a man, things you're too innocent to know about."
Willow swallowed hard, his hot look stealing her usual spontaneous wit. Dropping her gaze from his, she stammered, "I...It's getting late. We better go.
”
”
Charlotte McPherren (Song of the Willow)
“
Short speeches pass between two men who speak
No common language; and besides, in time
Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek
Rings o’er the dialogue, and many a crime
Is perpetrated ere a word can break
Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime
In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer,
There cannot be much conversation there.
And therefore all we have related in
Two long octaves, pass’d in a little minute;
But in the same small minute, every sin
Contrived to get itself comprised within it.
”
”
Lord Byron (Don Juan)
“
I thought a voice had to be about what you could do. It wasn’t until I heard Billie Holiday that I realized a voice could be a collection of compensations for things you couldn’t do. It could be an ingenuity – in the same way some writers wrote books that coursed between the boulders of what they couldn’t do, and went faster, and tumbled over, fell in rills and rushed breathlessly over the stones.
The great singers were also the great interpreters. She had just a single octave, and she made it her lifelong subject.
I thought a voice had to be about your fluency, your dexterity, your virtuosity. But in fact your voice could be about your failings, your faltering, your physical limits. The voices that ring hardest in our heads are not the perfect voices. They are the voices with an additional dimension, which is pain.
”
”
Patricia Lockwood
“
Fuck you."
I shrug. "You already have."
She rolls her eyes as her cheeks gain color. "So I have."
Bethany puts her drink down and her voice drops a few octaves, laughingly, "And what fun i had whilst doing it."
I chuckle uncontrollably, at so small a thing? No. Maybe it's the fact I've realized why other men had held nothing more than a vague interest for me "Oh, Beth!" I mock lament, both in reaction to her silliness and my own thoughts.
She abruptly stops laughing. "I swear to god, I would kill for your voice. Each time you speak it's like being ear fucked."
"Ear fucked," I echo and wince. "No, thank you.
”
”
Penelope Fletcher (Die, My Love)
“
I hurried after Sam, calling, "You might wait for us!" The last word, though it was but one syllable, covered two octaves, for my voice broke, as it had been doing lately with alarming frequency.
Sam turned back with a mischievous grin on his face. "Was that your voice cracking, or were you attempting to yodel?
”
”
Gary L. Blackwood (Shakespeare's Spy (Shakespeare Stealer, #3))
“
These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and
lands, they are
not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing
or next to
nothing,
If they do not enclose everything they are next to
nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the
riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they
are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and
the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe.
This is the breath of laws and songs and behaviour,
This is the tasteless water of souls.... this is the true
sustenance,
It is for the illiterate.... it is for the judges of the supreme
court . . . . it is for the federal capitol and the state
capitols,
It is for the admirable communes of literary men
and composers
and singers and lecturers and engineers and savans,
It is for the endless races of working people and
farmers and
seamen.
This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets and
scream of the octave flute and strike of triangles.
I play not a march for victors only.... I play great
marches for conquered and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall.... battles are lost in the
same spirit
in which they are won.
”
”
Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
“
He was enough older than Nicole to take pleasure in her youthful vanities and delights, the way she paused fractionally in front of the hall mirror on leaving the restaurant, so that the incorruptible quicksilver could give her back to herself. He delighted in her stretching out her hands to new octaves now that she found herself beautiful and rich. He tried honestly to divorce her from any obsession that he had stitched her together - glad to see her build up happiness and confidence apart from him; the difficulty was that, eventually, Nicole brought everything to his feet, gifts of sacrificial ambrosia, of worshipping myrtle.
”
”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender Is the Night)
“
Once upon a time, the gods took away the first ancestor of the sea elephants, coveting him for his exceptional beauty— tusks blue, body ivory.
The trauma of that original separation haunts every sea elephant thereafter and even when they sing, their songs contain five notes or fewer, the full octave missing from their music.
”
”
Shastri Akella (The Sea Elephants)
“
What brings you to Eversea House, Moncrieffe?"
Very polite the question, but strain pitched it nearly an octave higher than Ian's usual voice. His nostrils had flared; white lines made dents on either side of them.
"Opportunity," Moncrieffe said simply.
And smiled the sort of smile that wolves do, when they have their prey neatly cornered.
”
”
Julie Anne Long (What I Did for a Duke (Pennyroyal Green, #5))
“
But one gets tired of everything, even of abusing a person. Paris abandons its puppets which it raises to the throne as quickly as it does its martyrs whom it hoists on the gibbet; in its perpetual hunger for new playthings, it never gets itself excited overly much before the statues of its heroes or at the sight of the blood of its victims.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Le Calvaire)
“
With both hands, he played an octave. The piano, part of the scenery until now, began to breathe. As each note was struck, the piano raised its heavy body and stretched its folded arms and legs, preparing to break into song, about to spread its wings. This was unlike any piano I’d ever seen. I pictured an enormous lion, slowly rising, eyes on its prey.
”
”
Natsu Miyashita (羊と鋼の森)
“
Sir!” Laszlo’s voice rose an octave. He twirled a button with his fingers. “There isn’t enough time for—for two treatments. You must decide between your—your tooth or your…” With a grimace, he glanced at Roman’s swollen jeans. My fang or my yang? The latter strained against his zipper, as if it wanted to leap out and shoot its mouth off. Pick me, pick me!
”
”
Kerrelyn Sparks (How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire (Love at Stake, #1))
“
Life is filled with all goods and bads around each one of us,It's our rights to choose the path and we are responsible of all our deeds and consequences.
”
”
OctavE Life
“
De la varsta unuia la a celulilalt trebuie sa fie un drum. Drumul cautarii lor.Cand intre doi oameni drumul acesta nu mai exista, si-l cauta alaturi...
”
”
Octav Dessila
“
Le plus grand danger de la bombe d'un terroriste est dans l'explosion de bêtise qu'elle provoque
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Si infâmes que soient les canailles, elles ne le sont jamais autant que les honnêtes gens.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Diary of a Chambermaid)
“
murder is born of love and love attains the greatest intensity in murder
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Tp Priests, Soldiers, Judges- to men who rear, lead or govern men I dedicate these pages of murder and blood.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
She went up an octave, improvising on the tune. Showing off. She felt her father, beaming at her as she delighted a crowd. She felt her mother, absently mouthing the words as she made supper while Alice practiced playing. And for a moment, making music with Henry Evesham in an abandoned priory in a snowstorm in the midst of the unraveling of her life, she felt at peace.
”
”
Scarlett Peckham (The Lord I Left (The Secrets of Charlotte Street, #3))
“
Remember our first kiss?” He dropped his own voice a couple octaves.
Nodding slowly, she wrapped her arms around herself as her cheeks tinged bright pink.
Their first kiss had been in this cooler of all places. After dancing around their attraction to each other for almost a full year he’d decided to stake his claim on her. He still wasn’t sure who’d made the first move.
”
”
Savannah Stuart (Taming the Alpha (Crescent Moon, #1))
“
Mr. Gruffydd turned to my father, and he blew the note on the reed pipe.
Ivor raised his finger, and from top of the Hill down to bottom men and women hummed softly to have the proper key, with sopranos going up to find the octave, and altos climbing, and tenors making silver and contraltos and baritones resting in comfort and basso down on the octave below, and the sound they all made was a life-time of loveliness, so solid, so warm, so deep, and yet so delicate. It will be no surprise to me if the flowers of the gardens of heaven are made from such sound. And O, to smell a smell as good to the nose as that sound sounds to the ear.
But even heaven could not be so beautiful, or we would all be drunk with beauty day and night, and no work done anywhere, and nobody to blame. Drunk with beauty. There is lovely.
”
”
Richard Llewellyn (How Green Was My Valley)
“
Kvothe?” Auri said softly. I clenched my teeth against the sobbing and lay still as I could, hoping she would think I was asleep and leave. “Kvothe?” she called again. “I brought you—” There was a moment of silence, then she said, “Oh.” I heard a soft sound behind me. The moonlight showed her tiny shadow on the wall as she climbed through the window. I felt the bed move as she settled onto it. A small, cool hand brushed the side of my face. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “Come here.” I began to cry quietly, and she gently uncurled the tight knot of me until my head lay in her lap. She murmured, brushing my hair away from my forehead, her hands cool against my hot face. “I know,” she said sadly. “It’s bad sometimes, isn’t it?” She stroked my hair gently, and it only made me cry harder. I could not remember the last time someone had touched me in a loving way. “I know,” she said. “You have a stone in your heart, and some days it’s so heavy there is nothing to be done. But you don’t have to be alone for it. You should have come to me. I understand.” My body clenched and suddenly the taste of plum filled my mouth again. “I miss her,” I said before I realized I was speaking. Then I bit it off before I could say anything else. I clenched my teeth and shook my head furiously, like a horse fighting its reins. “You can say it,” Auri said gently. I shook again, tasted plum, and suddenly the words were pouring out of me. “She said I sang before I spoke. She said when I was just a baby she had the habit of humming when she held me. Nothing like a song. Just a descending third. Just a soothing sound. Then one day she was walking me around the camp, and she heard me echo it back to her. Two octaves higher. A tiny piping third. She said it was my first song. We sang it back and forth to each other. For years.” I choked and clenched my teeth. “You can say it,” Auri said softly. “It’s okay if you say it.” “I’m never going to see her again,” I choked out. Then I began to cry in earnest. “It’s okay,” Auri said softly. “I’m here. You’re safe.
”
”
Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2))
“
You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens…the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her…a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little…little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it’s fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
animal and plant are the descending fifth and third of man, the inorganic kingdom being the lower octave. The full truth of this last simile will become clear to us only when, in the next book, we attempt to fathom the deep significance of music. There we shall see how the connected melody, progressing in high, light, and quick notes, is to be regarded in a certain sense as expressing the life and efforts of man, connected by reflection.
”
”
Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1)
“
There is no place in the service of worship where vanity and bad taste can so intrude as in the singing. There is, first, the improvised second part which one hears almost everywhere. It attempts to give the necessary background, the missing fullness to the soaring unison tone, and thus kills both the words and the tone. There is the bass or the alto who must call everybody’s attention to his astonishing range and therefore sings every hymn an octave lower. There is the solo voice that goes swaggering, swelling, blaring and tremulant from a full chest and drowns out everything else to the glory of its own fine organ. There are the less dangerous foes of congregational singing, the ‘unmusical’ who cannot sing, of whom there are far fewer than we are led to believe, and finally, there are often those also who because of some mood will not join in the singing and thus disturb the fellowship.
”
”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together)
“
Sir!" the Crocodilian called. "I will get in trouble if management finds you down here! If you were anyone else, I'd bite your goddamned head off."
"We're busy!" I called back. "We'll be out in a minute!" Then to Do-
nut I said, "Can you say something to calm him down?"
"Carl is pooping! He's almost done!"
The Crocodilian's voice went up an octave. "In the hallway? Sir, this
is not a bathroom! This is the skill guild hallway!"
"Real helpful, Donut," I said.
”
”
Matt Dinniman (The Butcher's Masquerade (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #5))
“
By the death of Mr. O. Chanute the world has lost one whose labors had to an unusual degree influenced the course of human progress. If he had not lived the entire history of progress in flying would have been other than it has been.
”
”
Wilbur Wright (The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Including the Chanute-Wright Letters and Other Papers of Octave Chanute)
“
Ro shifted her voice up an octave and clasped her hands against her heart—“ ‘Oh, Hunkyhair, I never realized you felt that way, even though it was ridiculously obvious to everyone else. And I’ve been in love with you forever—I just didn’t know it because I’m super oblivious. I’m sorry I wasted so much time crushing on Captain Perfect—come here, let’s do all the smooching ever!’ ” She followed that with kissing sounds, and Keefe opened his mouth to tell Ro exactly where she could go.
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8.5))
“
Mais quand il les eut mises en branle, quand il sentit cette grappe de cloches remuer sous sa main, quand il vit, car il ne l'entendait pas, l'octave palpitante monter et descendre sur cette échelle sonore comme un oiseau qui saute de branche en branche, quand le diable musique, ce démon qui secoue un trousseau étincelant de strettes, de trilles et d'arpèges, se fut emparé du pauvre sourd, alors il redevint heureux, il oublia tout, et son coeur qui se dilatait fit épanouir son visage.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Notre Dame de Paris)
“
I saw your brother Octave at Marseilles last month. He is off to Paris, where he will get a fine berth in a high-class business. The young beggar, a nice life he leads.’ ‘What life?’ innocently inquired the priest. To avoid replying the doctor chirruped to his horse, and then went on: ‘Briefly, everybody is well—your aunt Felicite, your uncle Rougon, and the others. Still, that does not hinder our needing your prayers. You are the saint of the family, my lad; I rely upon you to save the whole lot.
”
”
Émile Zola (Abbe Mouret’s Transgression illustrated: Emile Zola (Classics,Literature))
“
Black holes generate sound. There’s one in the Perseus cluster of galaxies, 250 million light-years away. The signal was detected in 2003 in the form of X-rays (which will happily travel anywhere) by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite. No one will ever hear it, though. It’s 57 octaves lower than middle C: over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing. It’s the deepest note ever detected from any object anywhere in the universe and it makes a noise in the pitch of B flat—the same as a vuvuzela.
”
”
John Lloyd (QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance)
“
For he was one of those people who can never be ‘doing nothing,’ although there was nothing, for that matter, that he could ever be said to do. And as complete inactivity has the same effect on us, in the end, as prolonged overwork, and on the character as much as on the life of body and muscles, the unimpaired nullity of intellect that was enshrined behind Octave’s meditative brow had ended by giving him, despite his air of unruffled calm, ineffectual longings to think which kept him awake at night, for all the world like an overwrought philosopher.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In Search Of Lost Time (All 7 Volumes) (ShandonPress))
“
God saw Hansen tighten his chokehold on Day and he could see his lover fighting to breathe. Day’s ears and neck were bright red. His lips were turning a darker color as his body was deprived of oxygen. Hansen pressed the barrel in deeper and yelled.
“Two minutes and fifteen seconds before I get to zero and I provide the great state of Georgia the luxury of one less narc.”
God’s mind exploded at the thought of not having Day in a world he lived in. He looked into his partner’s glistening eyes and saw he was turning blue and possibly getting ready to faint. Day was still looking at him, looking into God’s green eyes.
No, no, no! He’s saying good-bye.
God closed his eyes and released a loud, gut-wrenching growl cutting off the SWAT leader’s negotiations.
“Godfrey, get yourself under control,” his captain said while grabbing for him.
God jerked himself away from the hold and stepped forward, his angry eyes boring into Hansen’s dark ones. Hansen stared at him as if God was crazy. Little did he know God was at that moment.
“Godfrey, get back here and stand down. That’s an order, Detective!” his captain barked.
God’s large hands clenched at his sides fighting not to pull out his weapons. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached.
“Do you have any idea of the shit storm you’re about to bring down on your life,” God spoke with a menacing snarl while his large frame shook with fury. “In your arms you hold the only thing in this world that means anything to me. The man that you are pointing a gun at is my only purpose for living. You are threating to kill the only person in this world that gives a fuck about me.”
God took two more steps forward and was vaguely aware of the complete silence surrounding him. Hansen’s finger hovered shakily over the trigger as he took two large steps back with Day still tight against his chest.
God growled again and he saw a shade of fear ghost over Hansen’s sweaty face.
“If you kill that man, I swear on everything that is holy, I will track you to the ends of the earth, killing and destroying any and everything you hold dear. I will take everything from you and leave you alive to suffer through it. I will bestow upon you the same misery that you have given to me.”
Hansen shook his head and inched closer to the door behind him.
“Stay back,” he yelled again but this time the demand lacked the courage and venom he exhibited before.
“You kill that man, and you’ll have no idea of the monster you will create. Have you ever met a man with no heart…no conscience…no soul…no purpose?” God rumbled, his voice at least twelve octaves lower than the already deep baritone.
God yanked his Desert Eagle from his holster in a flash and cocked the hammer back chambering the first round. Hansen stumbled back again, his eyes gone wide with fear.
God’s entire body instinctually flexed every muscle in his body and it felt like the large vein in his neck might rupture. His body burned like he had a sweltering fever and he knew his wrath had him a brilliant shade of red.
“I’m asking you a goddamn question, Hansen! No soul! No conscience! I’m asking you have you ever met the devil!” God’s thunderous voice practically rattled the glass in the hanger.
“If you kill the man I love, you better make your peace with God, because I’m gonna meet your soul in hell.” His voice boomed.
”
”
A.E. Via
“
reluctantly nodded. “THANK ALL THE SPARKLES FOR THAT! Now you just need to tell her you’re helplessly in love with her so she can be like”—Ro shifted her voice up an octave and clasped her hands against her heart—“ ‘Oh, Hunkyhair, I never realized you felt that way, even though it was ridiculously obvious to everyone else. And I’ve been in love with you forever—I just didn’t know it because I’m super oblivious. I’m sorry I wasted so much time crushing on Captain Perfect—come here, let’s do all the smooching ever!’ ” She followed that with kissing sounds,
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8.5))
“
I understood that the law of the world was strife; an inexorable, murderous law, which was not content with arming nation against nation but which hurled against one another the children of the same race, the same family, the same womb. I found none of the lofty abstractions of honor, justice, charity, patriotism of which our standard books are so full, on which we are brought up, with which we are lulled to sleep, through which they hypnotize us in order the better to deceive the kind little folk, to enslave them the more easily, to butcher them the more foully.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Un poëte, quoi qu'on en dise, est un ouvrier; il ne faut pas qu'il ait plus d'intelligence qu'un ouvrier, et sache un autre état que le sien sans quoi il le fait mal: je trouve très-parfaitement absurde la manie qu'on a de les guinder sur un socle idéal; -- rien n'est moins idéal qu'un poëte. -- Le poëte est un clavecin et n'est rien de plus. Chaque idée qui passe pose son doigt sur une touche; -- la touche résonne et donne sa note, voilà tout. Personne ne croit qu'un piano soit un musicien: les poëtes sont les pianos de la foule; les uns ont plus d'octaves, les autres moins.
”
”
Théophile Gautier (Les Grotesques)
“
in a sense to harmonize—at every eighth place along the scale. Slightly unwisely, for this was an idea whose time had not quite yet come, Newlands called it the Law of Octaves and likened the arrangement to the octaves on a piano keyboard. Perhaps there was something in Newlands’s manner of presentation, but the idea was considered fundamentally preposterous and widely mocked. At gatherings, droller members of the audience would sometimes ask him if he could get his elements to play them a little tune. Discouraged, Newlands gave up pushing the idea and soon dropped from view altogether.
”
”
Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything)
“
Girls, I was dead and down
in the Underworld, a shade,
a shadow of my former self, nowhen.
It was a place where language stopped,
a black full stop, a black hole
Where the words had to come to an end.
And end they did there,
last words,
famous or not.
It suited me down to the ground.
So imagine me there,
unavailable,
out of this world,
then picture my face in that place
of Eternal Repose,
in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe
from the kind of a man
who follows her round
writing poems,
hovers about
while she reads them,
calls her His Muse,
and once sulked for a night and a day
because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns.
Just picture my face
when I heard -
Ye Gods -
a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door.
Him.
Big O.
Larger than life.
With his lyre
and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize.
Things were different back then.
For the men, verse-wise,
Big O was the boy. Legendary.
The blurb on the back of his books claimed
that animals,
aardvark to zebra,
flocked to his side when he sang,
fish leapt in their shoals
at the sound of his voice,
even the mute, sullen stones at his feet
wept wee, silver tears.
Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself,
I should know.)
And given my time all over again,
rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself
than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc.
In fact girls, I’d rather be dead.
But the Gods are like publishers,
usually male,
and what you doubtless know of my tale
is the deal.
Orpheus strutted his stuff.
The bloodless ghosts were in tears.
Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years.
Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers.
The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.
Like it or not,
I must follow him back to our life -
Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife -
to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes,
octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets,
elegies, limericks, villanelles,
histories, myths…
He’d been told that he mustn’t look back
or turn round,
but walk steadily upwards,
myself right behind him,
out of the Underworld
into the upper air that for me was the past.
He’d been warned
that one look would lose me
for ever and ever.
So we walked, we walked.
Nobody talked.
Girls, forget what you’ve read.
It happened like this -
I did everything in my power
to make him look back.
What did I have to do, I said,
to make him see we were through?
I was dead. Deceased.
I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late.
Past my sell-by date…
I stretched out my hand
to touch him once
on the back of the neck.
Please let me stay.
But already the light had saddened from purple to grey.
It was an uphill schlep
from death to life
and with every step
I willed him to turn.
I was thinking of filching the poem
out of his cloak,
when inspiration finally struck.
I stopped, thrilled.
He was a yard in front.
My voice shook when I spoke -
Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece.
I’d love to hear it again…
He was smiling modestly,
when he turned,
when he turned and he looked at me.
What else?
I noticed he hadn’t shaved.
I waved once and was gone.
The dead are so talented.
The living walk by the edge of a vast lake
near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead.
”
”
Carol Ann Duffy (The World's Wife)
“
Before leaving the earth altogether, let us as: How does Music stand with respect to its instruments, their pitches, the scales, modes and rows, repeating themselves from octave to octave, the chords, harmonies, and tonalities, the beats, meters, and rhythms, the degrees of amplitude (pianissimo, piano, mezzo-piano, mezzo-forte, forte, fortissimo)? Though the majority go each day to the schools where these matters are taught, they read when time permits of Cape Canaveral, Ghana, and Seoul. And they’ve heard tell of the music synthesizer, magnetic tape. They take for granted the dials on radios and television sets. A tardy art, the art of Music. And why so slow? Is it because, once having learned a notation of pitches and durations, musicians will not give up their Greek? Children have been modern artists for years now. What is it about Music that sends not only the young but adults too as far into the past as they can conveniently go? The module? But our choices never reached around the globe, and in our laziness, when we changed over to the twelve-tone system, we just took the pitches of the previous music as though we were moving into a furnished apartment and had no time to even take the pictures off the walls. What excuse? That nowadays things are happening so quickly that we become thoughtless? Or were we clairvoyant and knew ahead of time that the need for furniture of any kind would disappear? (Whatever you place there in front of you sits established in the air.) The thing that was irrelevant to the structures we formerly made, and this was what kept us breathing, was what took place within them. Their emptiness we took for what it was – a place where anything could happen. That was one of the reasons we were able when circumstances became inviting (chances in consciousness, etc.) to go outside, where breathing is child’s play: no walls, not even the glass ones which, though we could see through them, killed the birds while they were flying.
”
”
John Cage (A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings)
“
Hey." The sound came out of him an octave deeper than all the others. "Can I ask your opinion on something else?"
"Yeah. Sure."
"What's your opinion on kissing me?"
I stopped breathing, aware that if I kept doing it, it would be all shaky and quivering. Utterly humiliating.
"I mean, not right now." I was so grateful Lincoln continued talking so his words could mask the nervous vibration in my exhale. I desperately needed another breath. Things were getting that fuzzy rimmed blackness that precluded passing out. "But, like, someday. Like, can I someday kiss you? Even if someday is really far off. Would that be okay?"
"I think that might be okay. Someday.
”
”
Megan Squires (Love Like Crazy)
“
From the still heart of darkness two notes echoed forth, one low, one high- and the eternal globe immediately spun into motion. Blessed be the first octave that opened this heavenly hymn! Let it gather the days from sabbath to sabbath into its magic web. It sings from the hills to the valleys, from the springs to the streams, from the streams to the rivers, from the rivers to the seas; its music trembles through the air and sets the budding flowers ashimmer. The earth's quivering breast heaves a sigh of love, and the chorus of stars reverberates through infinity, now receding, now returning back on itself, now contracting, now expanding, scattering the seeds of new creations far and wide.
”
”
Gérard de Nerval (Aurélia)
“
Here we have to acknowledge the fact that there were ages more fortunate than ours, those of Pythagoras and Aristoxenes, when our forefathers were satisfied with the fact that their purely tuned instruments were played only in some tones, because they were not troubled by doubts, for they knew that heavenly harmonies were the province of the gods. Later, all this was not enough, unhinged arrogance wished to take possession of all the harmonies of the gods. And it was done in its own way, technicians were charged with the solution, a Praetorius, a Salinas, and finally an Andreas Werckmeister, who resolved the difficulty by dividing the octave of the harmony of the gods, the twelve half-tones, into twelve equal parts.
”
”
Béla Tarr
“
On the inside, my father was terrified. The most precious thing in his life—his beloved wife of half a century—was being held at knifepoint. But I doubt very much that fear showed on his face. His eyes didn’t go wide with terror, and his voice didn’t jump an octave. If you knew my father, you would have seen him in other stressful situations, and you would have come to understand that the “frightened” face, for whatever reason, was simply not part of his repertoire. In crisis, he turned deadly calm. But if you didn’t know him, what would you have thought? Would you have concluded that he was cold? Unfeeling? When we confront a stranger, we have to substitute an idea—a stereotype—for direct experience. And that stereotype is wrong all too often.
”
”
Malcolm Gladwell (Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know)
“
I know all women are supposed to be strong enough now to strangle presidents and patriarchies between their powerful thighs, but it doesn't work that way. Many of us were actually affected, by male systems and male anger, in ways we cannot always articulate or overcome. Sometimes, when the ceiling seems especially low and the past especially close, I think to myself, I did not make it out. I am still there in that place of diminishment, where that voice an octave deeper than mine is telling me what I am. Before I turned thirteen, I had never been part of that class that my father called empty-headed and addressed as "dollface," that our church seemed to see as just bodies. I was simply myself, unique and irreducible. Suddenly I became female, and it was as if a telescope I had been looking through - with a clear eye, up at an unbounded night of stars - had been viciously turned on me. I went to a pinpoint. Does God exist was never a question for me then; do I exist took up the whole of my mind.
I did not make it out, but this does. Art goes outside, even if we don't; it fills the whole air, though we cannot raise our voices. This is the secret: when I encounter myself on the page, I am shocked at how forceful I seem. On the page I am strong, because that is where I put my strength. On the page I am everything that I am not, because that is where I put myself. I am no longer whispering through the small skirted shape of a keyhole: the door is knocked down and the roof is blown off and I am aimed once more at the entire wide night.
”
”
Patricia Lockwood (Priestdaddy)
“
You see how all occidental art loses by the fact that the magnificent expressions of love have been denied it. With us, eroticism is poor, stupid and frigid. It is always presented in ambiguous attitudes of sin, while here it preserves all its vital scope, all its passionate poetry and the stupendous pulse of all nature. But you are only a european lover... a poor, timid, chilly little soul.
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Le Jardin des supplices)
“
Think what it must be like for a victim about to die under torture. Think how the torture must be multiplied in his flesh and soul with the splendour that surrounds him! And how his agony must become more atrocious, more desperately atrocious, dearest heart!”
“I was thinking about love,” I replied reproachfully. “And you continuously talk about torture!”
“Why not - since it’s the same thing!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
The rest of the sonnet is more straightforward. Metaphorically it says that beauty ('the summer's flower') is sweet even if it does not propagate itself ('Though to itself it only live and die'), but if it becomes infected it is worth no more than `The basest weed'. What is the tenor of the metaphor? And the couplet appears to be trying to make a link with the octave: `For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds. I Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds'. (This last line is found also in the anonymous play, attributed at least in part to Shakespeare, Edward III. Though proverbial in tone, it has not been found elsewhere.) But what exactly is the link? The poem struggles to give an impression of profundity but its excessive use of generalization and metaphor inhibits communication.
”
”
Paul Edmondson (Shakespeare's Sonnets (Oxford Shakespeare Topics))
“
Let us hope that the advent of a successful flying machine, now only dimly foreseen and nevertheless thought to be possible, will bring nothing but good into the world; that it shall abridge distance, make all parts of the globe accessible, bring men into closer relation with each other, advance civilization, and hasten the promised era in which there shall be nothing but peace and goodwill among all men.
”
”
Octave Chanute
“
But again the facts did not tally with the scheme, and had to be explained away by ingenious reasoning. The 15-sided polygon, for instance, is construable, but does not produce a musical consonance. Moreover, the number of construable polygons is infinite, but Kepler only needed seven harmonic relations for his scale (octave, major and minor sixth, fifth, fourth, major, and minor third). Also, the harmonies had to be arranged into a hierarchy of varying degrees of 'knowability', or perfection. Kepler devoted as much labour to this fantastic enterprise as to the determination of the orbit of Mars. In the end he succeeded, to his own satisfaction, in deriving all his seven harmonies, by certain complicated rules of the game, from his perfect polygons. He had traced back the laws of music to the Supreme Geometer's mind.
”
”
Arthur Koestler (The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe)
“
As they walked out onto Second Avenue, with David in a body bag, there was one last surreal moment. The singer and composer Diamanda Galás happened to be walking by. She and David had never met, but they'd spoken once on the phone. She shared his commitment to addressing AIDS, in her case through 'The Plague Mass,' which showcased her five-octave range and fierce persona.
Galás does not remember being on Second Avenue that night, but she made an indelible impression on Zimmerman and Glantzman.
She had walked by, but as they were putting David into the hearse, she spun around and ran back, yelling, 'Who is that? Is that David Wojnarowicz?' Zimmerman and Brown didn't answer. What Glantzman remembers is that Diamanda Galás was there at the door, screaming. 'As if our feelings were amplified,' said Glantzman. 'Hysterical screaming.
”
”
Cynthia Carr (Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz)
“
To B-major or B-minor: that is the question. Consider that the major and minor chords are separated by the smallest tonal step which is one half-step carrying in its pitch the gravity of all humanity which needs the major to recognize its relative, inherent tragedy which once given expression seeks the resurrection that only the major can procreate which self-expression gives beauty to the harmony of the major which then confirms the whole truth of the tragic minor saga which overcomes the hidden hand of destiny in the great ellipse of being and the greater cosmic void of nothingness which passage of time has sadly destined to be replayed in the same octave of the ineluctable modality of the audible which ellipse with such a simple twist resonates as infinity which is both meaningless beyond all human capacity for understanding but which holds within it the ubiquitous mystic beauty and truth of the pulsing human heart.
”
”
David B. Lentz (Bloomsday: The Bostoniad)
“
Even if we speak uncommon tongues, sound grants us the mercy of understanding. That sympathetic quiver of the heart, when a harmony rolls in thirds or a seventh resolves into the octave—it’s the greatest miracle God ever wrought, for it shows us that we are one. There isn’t a person among us, German or Tommy, Aryan or Jew, whole of mind or simple, who doesn’t feel what you feel, what we all feel. In his most naïve moments, he thinks, If I could only play for the Führer, I might make him see it, the unity of God’s creation. And once he sees, how could he continue in this course of evil? He shivers. The evening is cold; winter is already here, though no snow has fallen yet. In the bare branches of the apple trees, he can hear some animal moving, the hop and rough slide of a bird’s feet against bark. But he can’t see the bird, and it has no song to sing now. He pulls at his pipe, blowing the smoke in the bird’s direction.
”
”
Olivia Hawker (The Ragged Edge of Night)
“
On ne se doute pas de tous les embêtements dont sont poursuivis les domestiques, ni de l’exploitation acharnée, éternelle qui pèse sur eux. Tantôt les maîtres, tantôt les placiers, tantôt les institutions charitables, sans compter les camarades, car il y en a de rudement salauds. Et personne ne s’intéresse à personne. Chacun vit, s’engraisse, s' amuse de la misère d' un plus pauvre que soi. Les scènes changent ; les décors se transforment ; vous traversez des milieux sociaux différents et ennemis ; et les passions restent les mêmes, les mêmes appétits demeurent. Dans l’appartement étriqué du bourgeois, ainsi que dans le fastueux hôtel du banquier, vous retrouvez des saletés pareilles, et vous vous heurtez à de l’inexorable. Enfin de compte, pour une fille comme je suis, le résultat est qu’elle soit vaincue d' avance, où qu' elle aille et quoi qu' elle fasse. Les pauvres sont l’engrais humain où poussent les moissons de vie, les moissons de joie que récoltent les riches, et dont ils mésusent si cruellement, contre nous...
”
”
Octave Mirbeau
“
Astăzi însă i-a pus sângele pe foc. Și l-a mai făcut ziua de astăzi și hoț de ființă omenească.Pentru că niciodată nu a luat dintr-o femeie atât cât a luat din Dana. Aroma părului ei cu rugini încinse în soare e în dânsul. O are toată în respirația lui. Cu ochii i-a furat rotunjimile bătăioase din piept și în urechi îi ticaie ceasornicul inimii ei. I-a luat cu el până și destinul. Căci fata aceasta și-a închis ochii pentru toți câți sunt pe lume și numai lui i-a întins mâna de orb, spunându-i: du-mă, du-mă mereu cu tine.
”
”
Octav Dessila (Inceput de viata)
“
Doesn't count when you use your hands to do most of the work.'
Nesta schooled her face into utter disdain, even as a hiss rose inside her. 'I bet that isn't what you've been telling yourself at night.'
Azriel's shoulders shook with silent laughter as Cassian set down his fork, his eyes gleaming with challenge.
Cassian's voice dropped an octave. 'Is that what those smutty books teach you? That it's only at night?'
It took a heartbeat for the words to settle. And she couldn't stop it, the heat that sprang to her face, her glance at his powerful hands. Even with Azriel now biting his lip to keep from laughing, she couldn't stop herself.
Cassian said with a wicked smile, 'It could be anytime- dawn's first light, or when I'm bathing, or even after a long, hard day of practice.'
She didn't miss the slight emphasis he put on long, hard.
Nesta couldn't stop her toes from curling in her boots. But she said with a silent smile, striding for the doorway, refusing to let one bit of the discomfort in her sore legs show, 'Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands, Cassian.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #5))
“
Look! when I am in a drawing room, a church, a station; on the terrasse of a cafe, at the theatre or wherever crowds pass or loiter, I enjoy considering faces from a strictly homicidal point of view. For you may see by the glance, by the back of the neck, the shape of the skull, the jaw bone and zygoma of the cheeks, or by some part of their persons that they bear the stigmata of that psychological calamity known as murder. It is scarcely an aberration of my mind, but I can go nowhere without seeing it flickering beneath eyelids, or without feeling its mysterious contact in the touch of every hand held out to me. Last Sunday I went to a town on the festival day of its patron saint. In the public square, which was decorated with foliage, floral arches, and poles draped with flags, was grouped every kind of amusement common to that sort of public celebration—And beneath the paternal eye of the authorities, a swarm of good people were enjoying themselves. The wooden horses, the roller-coaster and the swings drew a very meagre crowd. The organs wheezed their gayest tunes and most bewitching overtures in vain. Other pleasures absorbed this festive throng. Some shot with rifles, pistols, or the good old crossbow at targets painted like human faces; others hurled balls, knocking over marionettes ranged pathetically on wooden bars. Still others, mallet in hand, pounded upon a spring which animated a French sailor who patriotically transfixed with his bayonet a poor hova or a mocking Dahomean. Everywhere, under tents or in the little lighted booths, I saw counterfeits of death, parodies of massacre, portrayals of hecatombs. And how happy these good people were!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Le Jardin des supplices)
“
Perverse? Because they obey the only law of life; because they are satisfied with the only need of life, which is love? But consider, milady, the flower is only a reproductive organ. Is there anything healthier, stronger, or more beautiful than that? These marvelous petals, these silks, these velvets... these soft, supple, and caressing materials are the curtains of the alcove, the draperies of the bridal chamber, the perfumed bed where they unite, where they pass their ephemeral and immortal life, swooning with love. What an admirable example for us!” he spread the petals of the flower, counted the stamens laden with pollen, and he spoke again, his eyes swimming in a comical ecstasy: “See, milady; one, two, five, ten, twenty. See how they quiver! Look! Sometimes twenty males are required for the delight of a single female! he! he! he! Sometimes it’s the opposite.” one by one he tore off the petals of the flower: “And when they are gorged with love, then the curtains of the bed are torn away, the draperies of the chamber wither and fall; and the flowers die, because they know well they have nothing more to do. They die, to be reborn later, and once again, to love!
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (The Torture Garden)
“
The Highest Octaves of Light
Sands, in wild winds of surging waves
Over the desert dunes, sing with the tones
Of tiny pebbles moving all together, a shifting
Of dust grains humming and moaning
Over the growing and diminishing dunes.
His body in the mirror is the color
Of sands. The song he sings in the voice
Of light shining like waves of wind
Passing over his body inside the glass.
The mirror sings with the color of sand
In the highest octaves of light.
Have you ever listened to sands sing
With gold light as they fall in threads
Through the needle-eye opening
At the center of a hour-glass globe?
Why not arrange such globes in rows
Before a window of sun, each globe
A different width, a different height
Of refined or rudimentary glass, clear
Amber rose, a tinted blue of noon sky,
And listen to the chorus?
And then why not turn the globes
Upside down and over again to hear
Sands sing one more time?
The desert dunes are singing, wind-risen
Voices from a primeval earth, haunting,
Pacific, pining and irate. we listen
For the repeating message we remember.
The songs are only tumbling pebble grains;
Their words are only notes of swirling dust,
Sings the eternal light, Emanuel.
”
”
Pattiann Rogers (Quickening Fields (Penguin Poets))
“
The degree of consciousness of a living creature fluctuates up and down, depending on its emotional condition, within the limits of an octave of vibrations. These fluctuations, however, must not exceed the limits of elasticity of the nerves; for if they do, injuries and sicknesses of a more or less serious nature occur, even death. The vibration belonging to creative vital energy is absolutely lethal for creatures whose consciousness has not yet reached this level. It would burn out the nerves and nervous centres. For this reason, vital energy from the spinal column, where it has its seat, is transformed into a low vibration corresponding to the degree of consciousness of the person concerned and only this transformed vital current is conducted into the body. ‘Thus animals, for example, are animated by a much lower life vibration than primitive man; and primitive man with his beast-like selfish nature, is animated by lower vibrations of vital energy than a person who is spiritually developed. If one were to conduct the vital energy of a highly developed human being into an animal or a much less developed human, the animal or “lower-level” human would die instantly because of the contact with the more powerful vibrations.
”
”
Elisabeth Haich (Initiation)
“
The first is the belief that the universe is essentially harmonious, and that the source of that concord lies in mathematical proportions which can be directly related to musical harmonies. Pythagoras, in an oft-repeated legend, was said to have meditated on the sound of smiths beating hammers upon anvils, and to have argued that a hammer half as heavy produced a note an octave above its full-sized fellow.3 More important were the experiments with a single string, or monochord, attributed to him by his successors. If a stretched string is divided exactly into two it produces a sound an octave higher than the fundamental pitch (the ratio 2:1), the intervals of the fourth and fifth can similarly be expressed as the ratios 4:3 and 3:2 respectively, and all other intervals can be described in mathematical terms.4 These numerical proportions were then extended to describe the relationships of the planetary spheres, both in their relative distance one from another, and in the speed of their movement. The ideas were given influential (if obscure) expression in Plato’s Timaeus, and endlessly elaborated in succeeding centuries up to the Renaissance. One of the final manifestations of this understanding is provided in the illustration of cosmic harmony from Robert Fludd’s Utriusque cosmi … historia 1
”
”
David Lindley (Shakespeare And Music: Arden Critical Companions)
“
Well,then why don't we go hunting tomorrow?" he offered cheerfully, knowing that a sunny disposition right now would rankle his friend.
Bronwyn flashed Tyr a radiant smile. "What a sensible suggestion. After the past few days,it would be refreshing to spend some time with a charming gentleman and give me a chance to get away from certain...frustrations," she said as her gaze leisurely swept over Ranulf. "I can show you the choice spots."
Tyr let go a low chuckle. No wonder the women at court never interested Ranulf. None of them had the audaciousness needed to penetrate his thick shell. Tyr returned Bronwyn's smile and picked up a handful of almonds. "That would be great.It will also give you a chance to meet more of the men."
Ranulf didn't move, but his knuckles turned white. "The last thing the men need is a woman around who enjoys toying with their emotions."
"I do not toy,my lord,but I suspect manners and general kindness may appear that way to someone who has the emotional capacity of a stone." her voice had risen at least an octave, giving away her confusion and hurt pride.
Oblivious,Ranulf slowly shifted his gaze to hers and grated back, "If I am a stone,madam,then perhaps it is because I look like one.I'm sorry that I don't have Tyr's smile or Tory's sweet nature.Men like me do not appeal to women like yourself. I would be a half-wit to think otherwise.
”
”
Michele Sinclair (The Christmas Knight)
“
Still dark. The Alpine hush is miles deep. The skylight over Holly’s bed is covered with snow, but now that the blizzard’s stopped I’m guessing the stars are out. I’d like to buy her a telescope. Could I send her one? From where? My body’s aching and floaty but my mind’s flicking through the last night and day, like a record collector flicking through a file of LPs. On the clock radio, a ghostly presenter named Antoine Tanguay is working through Nocturne Hour from three till four A.M. Like all the best DJs, Antoine Tanguay says almost nothing. I kiss Holly’s hair, but to my surprise she’s awake: “When did the wind die down?”
“An hour ago. Like someone unplugged it.”
“You’ve been awake a whole hour?”
“My arm’s dead, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Idiot.” She lifts her body to tell me to slide out.
I loop a long strand of her hair around my thumb and rub it on my lip. “I spoke out of turn last night. About your brother. Sorry.”
“You’re forgiven.” She twangs my boxer shorts’ elastic. “Obviously. Maybe I needed to hear it.”
I kiss her wound-up hair bundle, then uncoil it. “You wouldn’t have any ciggies left, perchance?”
In the velvet dark, I see her smile: A blade of happiness slips between my ribs. “What?”
“Use a word like ‘perchance’ in Gravesend, you’d get crucified on the Ebbsfleet roundabout for being a suspected Conservative voter. No cigarettes left, I’m ’fraid. I went out to buy some yesterday, but found a semiattractive stalker, who’d cleverly made himself homeless forty minutes before a whiteout, so I had to come back without any.”
I trace her cheekbones. “Semiattractive? Cheeky moo.”
She yawns an octave. “Hope we can dig a way out tomorrow.”
“I hope we can’t. I like being snowed in with you.”
“Yeah well, some of us have these job things. Günter’s expecting a full house. Flirty-flirty tourists want to party-party-party.”
I bury my head in the crook of her bare shoulder. “No.”
Her hand explores my shoulder blade. “No what?”
“No, you can’t go to Le Croc tomorrow. Sorry. First, because now I’m your man, I forbid it.”
Her sss-sss is a sort of laugh. “Second?”
“Second, if you went, I’d have to gun down every male between twelve and ninety who dared speak to you, plus any lesbians too. That’s seventy-five percent of Le Croc’s clientele. Tomorrow’s headlines would all be BLOODBATH IN THE ALPS AND LAMB THE SLAUGHTERER, and the a vegetarian-pacifist type, I know you wouldn’t want any role in a massacre so you’d better shack up”—I kiss her nose, forehead, and temple—“with me all day.”
She presses her ear to my ribs. “Have you heard your heart? It’s like Keith Moon in there. Seriously. Have I got off with a mutant?”
The blanket’s slipped off her shoulder: I pull it back. We say nothing for a while. Antoine whispers in his radio studio, wherever it is, and plays John Cage’s In a Landscape. It unscrolls, meanderingly. “If time had a pause button,” I tell Holly Sykes, “I’d press it. Right”—I press a spot between her eyebrows and up a bit—“there. Now.”
“But if you did that, the whole universe’d be frozen, even you, so you couldn’t press play to start time again. We’d be stuck forever.”
I kiss her on the mouth and blood’s rushing everywhere.
She murmurs, “You only value something if you know it’ll end.
”
”
David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks)
“
Astrophage has a predator!” There’s a whole biosphere at Adrian. Not just Astrophage. There’s even an active biosphere within the Petrova line. This is where it all started. Has to be. How else can we explain countless extremely different life-forms that all evolved to migrate in space? They all came from the same genetic root. Astrophage was just one of many, many life-forms that evolved here. And with all life, there is variance and predation. Adrian isn’t just some planet that Astrophage infected. It’s the Astrophage homeworld! And it’s the home of Astrophage’s predators. “This is amazing!” I yell. “If we find a predator…” “We take home!” Rocky says, two octaves higher than normal. “It eat Astrophage, breed, eat more Astrophage, breed, eat more more more! Stars saved!” “Yes!” I press my knuckles against the tunnel wall. “Fist-bump!” “What, question?” I rap the tunnel again. “This. Do this.” He emulates my gesture against the wall opposite my hand. “Celebration!” I say. “Celebration!” The crew of the Hail Mary sat on the couch in the break room, each with their drink of choice. Commander Yáo had a German beer, Engineer Ilyukhina had a distressingly large tumbler of vodka, and Science Specialist DuBois had a glass of 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon that he had poured ten minutes in advance to ensure it had time to breathe. The break room itself had been a struggle to arrange. Stratt didn’t like anything that wasn’t directly related to the mission, and an aircraft carrier wasn’t exactly overflowing with extra space. Still, with more than a hundred scientists from all over the world demanding a place to relax, she had relented. A small room in the corner of the hangar deck was built to house the “extravagance.” Dozens of people crowded into the room and watched the TV feed on the wall-mounted monitor. By silent agreement, the crew got to sit on the couch.
”
”
Andy Weir (Project Hail Mary)
“
He was the son of a very wealthy industrialist who was to play a rather important part in the organizing of the next International Exhibition. I was struck by how knowledgeable this young man and the other few male friends of the girls were in things like clothes, ways of wearing them, cigars, English drinks, horses—a form of erudition that in him was highly developed, which he wore with a proud infallibility, reminiscent of the scholar’s modest reticence—an expertise that was quite selfsufficient, without the slightest need for any accompanying intellectual cultivation. He could not be faulted on the appropriate occasions for wearing dinner jacket or pajamas, but he had no idea of how to use certain words, or even of the most elementary rules of good grammar. That disparity between two cultures must have been shared by his father, who, in his capacity as president of the Association of Property Owners of Balbec, had written an open letter to his constituents, now to be seen as a placard on all the walls, in which he said, “I was desirous of talking to the Mayor about this matter, however, he was of a mind to not hear me out on my just demands.” At the Casino, Octave won prizes in all the dancing competitions—the Boston dip, the tango, and so on—a qualification, if he should ever need one, for a good marriage, among seaside society, a milieu in which a young girl quite literally ends up married to her “partner.” He lit a cigar and said to Albertine, “If you don’t mind,” as one excuses oneself for going on with an urgent piece of work in the presence of someone. For he always “had to be doing something,” though in fact he never did anything. Just as a total lack of activity can eventually have the same effects as overwork, whether in the emotional domain or in the domain of the body and its muscles, the constant intellectual vacuum that resided behind the pensive forehead of Octave had had the result, despite his undisturbed air, of giving him ineffectual urges to think, which kept him awake at night, as though he were a metaphysician with too much on his mind.
”
”
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
“
And if someone can lead me to him?” Malaki asks.
“Report back to me first. I don’t want to chance losing him. Oh and by the way—” Des’s eyes inadvertently land on Temper, “be discreet.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Temper’s voice is several octaves louder than everyone else’s.
The Bargainer arches an eyebrow.
“I’m as motherfucking discreet as they come,” she says.
I’m trying really, really hard not to laugh, but the struggle is real.
Malaki manages a sharp nod. “We will be discreet,” he assures Des.
The sorceress huffs. “Y’all need to get your heads checked. I am not the problem.” She turns on Malaki. “And you don’t need to go making promises for me. I never even said I was coming along.”
“And you don’t need to.” The Bargainer stands. “But if you imagined staying behind so that you could have fun with Callie, then you’ll be sorely disappointed. The future Night Queen has official business that will take her away from the palace.”
It takes me a second to realize Des is referring to me.
“Wait,” I say, “I haven’t agreed to be queen.”
“Yeah,” Temper agrees, “my girl hasn’t agreed—what?” She turns on me. “Bitch, have you lost your mind? Take that crown and wear that shit like it’s your birthright.”
Ignoring Temper, Des’s gaze falls on me, his features sharp. “I apologize, the Night King’s consort has official business that will take her away from the palace.”
I narrow my eyes at my mate. I might not have jumped onboard with this whole queen business, but I sure as hell don’t want to be known simply as someone else’s consort.
“Hoooo!” Temper whoops, falling back into her seat. “You better sleep with one eye open, Desmond. I’ve seen my girl make men pay for less.”
He’s still staring intensely at me. “That’s odd. For as long as I’ve known Callie, she’s the one who’s paid for my services. I admit, it’ll be nice to not be the prostitute in our relationship for once.”
Temper snickers, appraising Des all over again. “Fuck one eye. Sleep with both eyes open.”
I shake my head at Des as I stand, my eyes slitted. “It’s time to go.”
We give curt goodbyes to Temper and Malaki, then slip out of the library.
“You do realize how close you were to getting glamoured, don’t you?” I say as we head down the hallway.
Des’s eyes seem to be laughing at me. “You say that like I’d mind.
”
”
Laura Thalassa (Dark Harmony (The Bargainer, #3))
“
When he lifted his head, Savannah nearly pulled him back to her. He watched her face, her eyes cloudy with desire, her lips so beautiful, bereft of his. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Savannah? There is such beauty in your soul, I can see it shining in your eyes.”
She touched his face, her palm molding his strong jaw. Why couldn’t she resist his hungry eyes? “I think you’re casting a spell over me. I can’t remember what we were talking about.”
Gregori smiled. “Kissing.” His teeth nibbled gently at her chin. “Specifically, your wanting to kiss that orange-bearded imbecile.”
“I wanted to kiss every one of them,” she lied indignantly.
“No, you did not. You were hoping that silly fop would wipe my taste from your mouth for all eternity.” His hand stroked back the fall of hair around her face. He feathered kisses along the delicate line of her jaw. “It would not have worked, you know. As I recall, he seemed to have a problem getting close to you.”
Her eyes smoldered dangerously. “Did you have anything to do with his allergies?” She had wanted someone, anyone, to wipe Gregori’s taste from her mouth, her soul.
He raised his voice an octave. “Oh, Savannah, I just have to taste your lips,” he mimicked. Then he went into a sneezing fit. “You haven’t ridden until you’ve ridden on a Harley, baby.” He sneezed, coughed, and gagged in perfect imitation.
Savannah punched his arm, forgetting for a moment her bruised fist. When it hurt, she yelped and glared accusingly at him. “It was you doing all that to him! The poor man— you damaged his ego for life. Each time he touched me, he had a sneezing fit.”
Gregori raised an eyebrow, completely unrepentant. “Technically, he did not lay a hand on you. He sneezed before he could get that close.”
She laid her head back on the pillow, her ebony hair curling around his arm, then her arm, weaving them together. His lips found her throat, then moved lower and found the spot over her breast that burned with need, with invitation. Savannah caught his head firmly in her hands and lifted him determinedly away from her before her treacherous body succumbed completely to his magic. “And the dog episode?”
He tried for innocence, but his laughter was echoing in her mind. “What do you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean,” she insisted. “When Dragon walked me home.”
“Ah, yes, I seem to recall now. The big bad wolf decked out in chains and spikes, afraid of a little dog.”
“Little? A hundred-and-twenty-pound Rottweiler mix? Foaming at the mouth. Roaring. Charging him!”
“He ran like a rabbit.” Gregori’s soft, caressing voice echoed his satisfaction. He had taken great pleasure in running that particular jackass off. How dare the man try to lay a hand on Savannah?
“No wonder I couldn’t touch the dog’s mind and call him off. You rotten scoundrel.”
“After Dragon left you, I chased him for two blocks, and he went up a tree. I kept him there for several hours, just to make a point. He looked like a rooster with his orange comb.”
She laughed in spite of her desire not to. “He never came near me again.”
“Of course not. It was unacceptable,” he said complacently, with complete satisfaction, the warmth of his breath heating her blood.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Magic (Dark, #4))
“
And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb—on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost—climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!—for it seems at times, as though the ear also possessed a sight of its own,—behold, rising from each bell tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the vibration of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell they melt together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate in a magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of sonorous vibrations incessantly sent forth from the numerous belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening circle of its oscillations.
Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold the windings of each group of notes which escapes from the belfries. You can follow the dialogue, by turns grave and shrill, of the treble and the bass; you can see the octaves leap from one tower to another; you watch them spring forth, winged, light, and whistling, from the silver bell, to fall, broken and limping from the bell of wood; you admire in their midst the rich gamut which incessantly ascends and re-ascends the seven bells of Saint-Eustache; you see light and rapid notes running across it, executing three or four luminous zigzags, and vanishing like flashes of lightning. Yonder is the Abbey of Saint-Martin, a shrill, cracked singer; here the gruff and gloomy voice of the Bastille; at the other end, the great tower of the Louvre, with its bass. The royal chime of the palace scatters on all sides, and without relaxation, resplendent trills, upon which fall, at regular intervals, the heavy strokes from the belfry of Notre-Dame, which makes them sparkle like the anvil under the hammer. At intervals you behold the passage of sounds of all forms which come from the triple peal of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Then, again, from time to time, this mass of sublime noises opens and gives passage to the beats of the Ave Maria, which bursts forth and sparkles like an aigrette of stars. Below, in the very depths of the concert, you confusedly distinguish the interior chanting of the churches, which exhales through the vibrating pores of their vaulted roofs.
Assuredly, this is an opera which it is worth the trouble of listening to. Ordinarily, the noise which escapes from Paris by day is the city speaking; by night, it is the city breathing; in this case, it is the city singing. Lend an ear, then, to this concert of bell towers; spread over all the murmur of half a million men, the eternal plaint of the river, the infinite breathings of the wind, the grave and distant quartette of the four forests arranged upon the hills, on the horizon, like immense stacks of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a half shade, all that is too hoarse and too shrill about the central chime, and say whether you know anything in the world more rich and joyful, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes;—than this furnace of music,—than these ten thousand brazen voices chanting simultaneously in the flutes of stone, three hundred feet high,—than this city which is no longer anything but an orchestra,—than this symphony which produces the noise of a tempest.
”
”
Victor Hugo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
“
Visible light was a mere one octave on a keyboard fifteen meters wide—humanity’s slice of reality.
”
”
Gregory Benford (Glorious (Bowl of Heaven, #3))
“
In many acoustical applications, sound is considered as falling in eight octave bands, with center frequencies of 63; 125; 250; 500; 1,000; 2,000; 4,000; and 8,000 Hz. In some cases, sound is considered in terms of 1/3-octave bands, with center frequencies falling at 31.5; 50; 63; 80; 100; 125; 160; 200; 250; 315; 400; 500; 630; 800; 1,000; 1,250; 1,600; 2,000; 2,500; 3,150; 4,000; 5,000; 6,300; 8,000; and 10,000 Hz.
”
”
F. Alton Everest (Master Handbook of Acoustics)
“
She’s sitting right next to you, man!”
Randy’s voice had risen a full octave, but luckily the marching band drowned it out with a rousing rendition of Wang Chung’s only hit.
”
”
Matthew Speak (Devils Glen (Bettendorf Tales, #1))
“
Do you know what made me fall in love with you?" George asked suddenly. Anne shook her head, puzzled that he should ask her this now. "I heard you laugh down the hall, just before I got to Spanish class that first day. I couldn't see you, I just heard this fabulous laugh, like a whole octave, top to bottom, and I had to hear it again." She put her fork down gently and came around the table to stand by his chair. His hands went around her hips and she pulled his head to her belly, cradling it against her body. "Let's live forever, old man," she said, smoothing the silver hair away from his face and bending to kiss him. He grinned up at her. "Okay," he said amiably, "but only because it'll really piss off that insurance guy you bought the annuities from." And she laughed, a full octave, descending from high C like chimes.
”
”
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1))
“
Then, in his quiet way that always disarmed me, he said, “I missed you today.” I sighed again, this time because his sweet words chased the breath out of me. I grinned like a content cat—which didn’t make any sense, because no other animals but humans smile in order to demonstrate pleasure. I pressed my lips together to keep from relating this as a fact. Quinn’s gaze narrowed on mine. He must’ve perceived that I was suppressing a tangent, because he said, “Say it.” “What?” He lifted his eyebrows, dipped his chin, and issued me a very effective glare that said, You know what. I shook my head. “It’s nothing.” “Tell me.” “It’s completely unnecessary information.” “I want to know.” He dropped his voice nearly an octave and held me against him as though to emphasize his point. This only served to make me more deliciously agitated. “Quinn...” I whispered. I didn’t know why I whispered. “Janie, everything you say is fascinating.” He whispered too. “No, it’s not. And the fact that you think I’ll believe that you believe that I’ll believe a statement so patently false is somewhat concerning to me.” He took a moment to sort through the tangled web of my words before he responded. “I’m not really sure what that means. However, the fact that you think I’d say something patently false to you is very concerning to me.” We held each other’s eyes, a showdown of manufactured guilt. He won. “Fine. You want to know? I was just thinking that I was smiling like a contented cat, which troubled me as an analogy because no animals other than humans smile as a demonstration of pleasure. Some people think animals do, especially cats and dogs, but those people are mistaken. The mouth curve is incidental. Cats purr to demonstrate pleasure, and dogs wag their tails.
”
”
Penny Reid (The Neanderthal Box Set)
“
Il n’est plus du peuple, d’où il sort ; il n’est pas, non plus, de la bourgeoisie où il vit et où il tend… Du peuple qu’il a renié, il a perdu le sang généreux et la force naïve… De la bourgeoisie, il a gagné les vices honteux, sans avoir pu acquérir les moyens de les satisfaire… et les sentiments vils, les lâches peurs, les criminels appétits, sans le décor, et, par conséquent, sans l’excuse de la richesse… L’âme toute salie, il traverse cet honnête monde bourgeois et rien que d’avoir respiré l’odeur mortelle qui monte de ces putrides cloaques, il perd, à jamais, la sécurité de son esprit, et jusqu’à la forme même de son moi…
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (Le Journal d'une Femme de Chambre)
“
His voice is about three octaves deeper than his thin frame has any reason to suggest. The effect is grandfatherly to the extreme. He uses phrases like “every simple bastard” and “a bunch of kooks” and laughs at his own jokes in a bona fide chuckle, which is to say, with an easy, self-amused, reflective roll, as if he’s astonished by a world so weird as to provide him this type of fodder. His eyes widen frequently but not theatrically. He leans in; he listens. He points out accepted industry-wide lies, calls his friends and competitors out on casual racism and sexism, and checks his own exaggerations immediately. He is the quintessential non–bullshit artist. And it is an art, this straight talk to the extreme. It is active and participatory and evoked from you, often despite you.
”
”
Benjamin Lorr (The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket)
“
when one tears away the veils and shows them naked, people's souls give off such a pungent smell of decay
”
”
Octave Mirbeau (A Chambermaid's Diary)
“
A knock came at the door and I stiffened, getting to my feet so that I could open it.
Darius stood outside wearing a black tux which looked like it had been made specifically for him. It fit perfectly and my mouth dried up as my gaze roamed over him. His dark hair was slicked back and the rough stubble lining his jaw ached for me to brush my fingers over it.
No, no, no. Bad Tory.
“Darcy’s not here yet,” I said in place of a greeting.
“I can see that,” he replied.
Before I could lose myself to the spell of his unfairly good looks, I turned away from him, heading back to the mirror which hung on the wall as I applied another coat of lipstick which wasn’t in any way necessary.
He stayed by the door, leaning against the frame as he watched me. “You’re not wearing the dress I sent you.”
“This might be a good time for you to realise, I don’t tend to do as I’m told,” I said dismissively.
“I think I like this one better anyway.”
I turned to look at him in surprise as his gaze slid over me in a way that made heat rise along my skin.
“Nice to know you can admit when you’re wrong,” I said. “So you’re actually going to stick to your word about being nice?”
Darius flashed me a smile which transformed his face in a way I’d never seen before. “I am. Just try not to fall in love with me though, it could make things awkward when we go back to fighting with each other tomorrow.”
I scoffed at that and tossed my lipstick into my clutch just as my Atlas pinged.
Darcy:
I bumped into Orion by The Orb. He says he’s coming with us and that you should meet us here...
I raised an eyebrow in surprise and tapped out a quick response.
Tory:
Okay, I’ll be there to rescue you from his grumpy face ASAP x
“Darcy says she’s going to meet us at The Orb. She ran into your bestie and he told her he can’t bear to spend the evening away from you so he’s tagging along. I just hope that this party isn’t going to be dull, because inviting a teacher has really lowered my expectations for debauchery,” I said as I moved out of my room and locked up behind me.
“In all honesty, Lance is more likely to add to the debauchery than detract from it,” Darius said, offering me his arm.
“Ooo Lance has a first name. Will he want me using that or is it a special right only given to those who get a tattoo in his honour?” I asked, touching my fingers to Darius’s forearm where I knew the Libra brand sat on his skin beneath the fancy suit. I didn’t take his arm though and started walking down the corridor unassisted.
“What makes you think that tattoo is for him?” Darius asked, falling into step with me easily despite the fast pace I set.
“Oh is it a secret? I thought everyone knew he was your Guardian and you’ve got that little soul bond thing going on.”
“Who told you that?” Darius demanded, his voice dropping an octave.
“You just did.” I flashed him a smile and he scowled at me. “Done playing nice so soon?”
He released a long breath as we reached the common room but didn’t reply. A lot of eyes turned our way. I guessed the sight of the two of us suddenly hanging out was pretty weird.
(Tory)
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Ruthless Fae (Zodiac Academy, #2))
“
Which means you are—” “Don't you dare fucking say it, or I will end you,” I bellow with every fiber of menace I possess as I stalk toward her. My threat doesn’t register as she looks like she’s about to explode with joy. Her voice slides up to an impossibly feminine octave as she cries out, “You are a Teddy bea—
”
”
Holly Roberds (Chasing Goldie (The Lost Girls, #2))
“
Um, do I have a limit?” she questioned, assuming he’d be the one coming out of pocket. “You want me to give you one?” Kema glanced inside the basket at the three books inside. “I have no self-control, so yes.” “Choose a number between four and twenty.” “Twenty,” she said with ease as her voice raised an octave. Tyrel chuckled. “Twenty books it is, then.
”
”
BriAnn Danae (Yours To Have (Erotic Love Language, #5))
“
The songs of galaxies the farthest away were singing in the lowest octaves. He, and he alone, was experiencing this. Because the universe is expanding. He must have repeated that phrase over and over. He repeated it over and over because he was torn in two different
”
”
Brian Swimme (Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe)
“
a universe expanding in all directions. A universe expanding in all directions will stretch out all the waves of light coming from the galaxies. Hubble was experiencing this directly. He had found himself in the midst of these stretched-out waves as would be the case in an ever-widening universe. In one silent, thunderous instant, the developing universe surfaced in Hubble’s mind. He had knitted together observations and calculations. The songs of galaxies the farthest away were singing in the lowest octaves. He, and he alone, was experiencing this. Because the universe is expanding. He must have repeated that phrase over and over. He repeated it over and over because he was torn in two different directions. Out of habit, he perceived change as something that happened to objects in the universe. But the data were whispering a truth radically different. They were suggesting that the universe as a whole was changing. Light from the more distant galaxies was stretched to lower frequencies because galaxies were rapidly expanding away. The experience was breaking apart structures of his mind, transforming his understanding of his placement in the universe. In my imagined reconstruction of the event, Hubble next positioned the Hooker Telescope so that he could view, at the same time, two different galaxies. One of them ten times as far away as the other. Checking his data, he found that the distant one was expanding away from him ten times as fast.
”
”
Brian Swimme (Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe)