July 15, 2024, 4:46 a.m.
Few things in life are as universally uplifting and soul-stirring as a powerful song. Whether you're an aspiring vocalist, a seasoned performer, or simply someone who finds joy in melody, the words of wisdom shared by singers, music legends, and poetry have the power to inspire and motivate. In this post, we've gathered a curated collection of the top 36 inspiring singing quotes that capture the essence of what it means to pour your heart into a song. Let these words encourage you to embrace your passion for singing, push past any doubts, and find the courage to share your unique voice with the world.
1. “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” - T.S. Eliot
2. “Because of her singing they all went away feeling moved, feeling comforted, feeling, perhaps, the slightest tremors of faith.” - Ann Patchett
3. “A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists.Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.” - Vera Nazarian
4. “He who sings scares away his woes.” - Cervantes
5. “I listened wide-eyed, stupid. Glowing by her voice in the dim light. If chocolate was a sound, it would've been Constantine's voice singing. If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate.” - Kathryn Stockett
6. “My angel-boy is close now, as in five-feet-away close. There's no way I'm going to burst into song in front of him. But then the contrary part of me says, you're going to let a boy keep you from singing out loud? Sing, sister! Sing!So I do, and my angel-boy turns his head.” - Lauren Myracle
7. “That's a nice song," said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time. "It's an old soldiers' song," he said. "Really, sarge? But it's about angels." Yes, thought Vimes, and it's amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It's a real soldiers' song: sentimental, with dirty bits. "As I recall, they used to sing it after battles," he said. "I've seen old men cry when they sing it," he added. "Why? It sounds cheerful." They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You'll learn. I know you will.” - Terry Pratchett
8. “It wasn't that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.” - Terry Pratchett
9. “Tucker: "Today we ran into a mama grizzly with two cubs at the ridge off Colter Bay and Clara sang to it to make it go away."Mrs. Avery: You sang to it?Tucker: Her singing is that bad.” - Cynthia Hand
10. “Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars, not if you care for such things.” - J.R.R. Tolkien
11. “When I was a child, Mama had the best voice of all the members of the church. She had loved to sing. Her words had soared like an angel's over the swells of the organ. In fact, I now suspected, her entire theology had been taken from the hymnal.” - Siri Mitchell
12. “And all meet in singing, which braids together the different knowings into a wide and subtle music, the music of living. ” - Alison Croggon
13. “If everyone started off the day singing, just think how happy they'd be.” - Lauren Myracle
14. “He wasn’t sure why he felt so compelled to follow the singing, or why he needed to bring the foot with him, but he knew the two phenomena were connected. And in the midst of the mystery lay his father. His father’s sanity. Nicholas was sure of this.” - Kevin Wallis
15. “The way you kiss, the way you sing. The way you tell me everything. Will you take my heart? i´m offering it to you...” - Angela Morrison
16. “When we sing, I am one of many, and the individual me evaporates. I am one of 23 university choir members. Not a professor. Not an American. Not a 46-year-old in the midst of twentysomethings. Not a woman trying to outpace the aspects of self she has yet to make oeace with. I am simply what we all are--another voice, a set of lungs, some vocal chords and someone who finds joy and comfort in singing. But when the music stops, so does the we. The union dissolves. The silence transforms first person plural into first person singular.” - Laura Kelly
17. “For weeks Charlie had been singing the same song over and over again.“Dinah won’t you blow…”He sang it twenty-four hours a day, with the same vacant, cheerful tone.”Dinah won’t you blow your hor-or-orn?”He kept the beat with his head, endlessly banging it against the hallways bulkhead.“Dinah won’t you blow…”Johnnie-O, who had very little patience to begin with, would have pulled out his hair, were it possible for an Afterlight’s hair to come out.“Dinah won’t you blow…”Johnnie squeezed his oversized hands into fists, wishing there was something he could bust, but having spent many years trying to break things, he knew more than anyone that Everlost stuff didn’t break, unless breakage was its purpose.“Dinah won’t you blow your horn!”“Dammit, will you shut your hole or I swear I’m gonna pound you into next Tuesday and then throw you out of the stinkin’ window where you and your song can drown and sink down to the center of earth for all I care, so you better shut your hole right now!”Charlie looked at him for a moment, eyes wide, considering it. Then he said, ”Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah!”Johnnie groaned.” - Neal Shusterman
18. “See, some people politely encourage their tone-deaf friends to sing. Some people even convince them to go on live television and audition for national competitions. But me? I am not that friend.” - Sarah Ockler
19. “It was the only lullaby she would ever sing, and it was sung in Hell.” - Laini Taylor
20. “That´s the problem with planning a late night supper after the opera, not only does the hero or the heroine die singing, but you end up famished after the last notes of the finale.” - E.A. Bucchianeri
21. “It was nothing like Roxanne singing, where it seemed that everyone's heart would have to wait until she finished before it could beat again.” - Ann Patchett
22. “Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.” - Ally Condie
23. “Sing before the spirits and dance with the earth deitiesAnd you will be able to compose your own tune.Then you and I, united, will clap hands joyously,Singing 'tum-tiddly-um tum-tiddly-um-tum.” - Hongzhi Zhengjue
24. “Now, I normally do not like it when people sing near me, much less at me. I don't care if they're good, bad, or mediocre. It's all the same. Unless you're signed to a major label with music I can find on iTunes, I don't want to hear your live performance. It's why I can't watch American Idol. I keep worrying the contestants will mess up and be embarrassed, and then I'll be embarrassed for them.” - Lauren Morrill
25. “When a group of people sing together, we make up a chorus. When birds do, it's more like a whole symphony orchestra.” - Laura Erickson
26. “The woods would be quiet if no bird sang but the one that sang best.” - Henry Van Dyke
27. “The night seemed suddenly defiled by the absence of music, as if the silence itself was injecting a sickness that only another song could cure.” - Jake Vander Ark
28. “Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.” - Criss Jami
29. “Her singing always cheered him up. Life seemed so much brighter when she stopped.” - Terry Pratchett
30. “There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.” - Dejan Stojanovic
31. “She sang that night like - I cannot say like an angel, for her songs were all of champagne suppers and strolling in the Burlington Arcade; perhaps, then, like a fallen angel - or yet again like a falling one: she sang like a falling angel might sing with the bounds of heaven fresh burst behind him, and hell still distant and unguessed. And as she did so, I sang with her - not loudly and carelessly like the rest of the crowd, but softly, almost secretly, as if she might hear me the better if I whispered rather than bawled.” - Sarah Waters
32. “I wish that life could be carefree, sunny, never cloudy- But you said that I would be in Your arms when things get crazy- so when the storm doesn't go away- I have decided to sing in the rain.” - Moriah Peters
33. “New Song"For You, ManuelitaInside the HorizonSOMEONE WAS SINGING The voice Is not known WHERE DOES IT COME FROM Among the branches No one is to be seen The moon itself was an ear And one hears no sound However a star unnailed Has fallen into the pond THE HORIZON HAS CLOSED UP And there is no exit” - Vicente Huidobro
34. “Neruda had his first dream, First meeting with the Moon and the Sun In sunny La Mancha, hiding in his heart,Where he learned how to sing like a nightingale.” - Dejan Stojanovic
35. “Gavin stood within the trees, observing her from the shadows. He watched the basket rise to her nose as she closed her eyes to sniff at its contents. A smile told him it smelled delicious, but she didn’t open the container to pinch off a sample. Instead, the basket lowered to swing at her side as it had previously done. All at once the air was filled with soft singing--a sweet, merry tune comprised of ludicrous lyrics. It was impossible not to grin at the words. “Rainbows paint the sky ‘til the sun melts their colors. Swinging in the wind, whiskered cattails purr. The pigs gallop by and snort at the moon, While frogs kiss the lizards and princesses too.”” - Richelle E. Goodrich
36. “It's about that applause I want to speak to you. I want you to remember that when you've done a little dance or a song or sketch, the applause which you get is not only because you yourself have done your best, but because each of those men is seeing in you someone he loves at home, and because of you is able to forget for a little while the unhappiness of not being in his home, and in some cases the great tragedy of not knowing what has happened to the children in his family.” - Noel Streatfeild