“You swore you loved me, and laughed and warned me that you would not love me forever.
I did not hear you. You were speaking in a language I did not understand.”
“Windy, Breeze, and Stormy heard this and their ears perked up. An adventure meant a car ride, and they did love car rides. So they thought, ‘why not? Let’s go!”
“She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.”
“Amos, a mouse, lived by the ocean. He loved the ocean. He loved the smell of sea air. He loved to hear the surf sounds- the bursting breakers, the backwashes with rolling pebbles. He thought a lot about the ocean, and he wondered about the faraway places on the other side of the water.”
“The bear went over the mountain, to see what he could see, hear what he could hear, smell what he could smell, touch what he could touch, and taste what he could taste; what a busy bear!”
“Yes, he had heard it all his life, but it was only now that his ears were opened to this sound that came from darkness, that could only come from darkness, that yet bore such sure witness to the glory of the light.”
“Did you ever hear of Mickey, how he heard a racket in the night and shouted, ‘Quiet down there!’ and fell through the dark, out his clothes, past the moon & his mama & papa sleeping tight into the light of the night kitchen?”
“I have stared at a book pretending I couldn’t hear what was going on around me, too. If people think you can’t hear them, they talk as if you couldn’t. You can hear some pretty neat stuff that way.”
“And the monster is back. Every now and then he can hear it move under the bed. It sighs. It licks its paws. Sometimes it turns over. It never does anything, but it lies there.”
“Parents, educators, other adults, institutions- the culture itself- may say one thing to children about nature’s gifts, but so many of our actions and messages- especially the ones we cannot hear ourselves deliver- are different. And children hear very well.”
″ ‘Grandmamma, what great arms you have got!’
‘That is the better to hug thee, my dear’
‘Grandmama, what great legs you have got!’
‘That is to run the better, my child’
‘Grandmamma, what great ears you have got!’
‘That is to hear the better, my child’
‘Grandmamma, what great eyes you have got!’
‘It is to see the better, my child’. ”
“Dad had heard about somebody riding a bike down the Kvarngatan steps. So, it was you, was it! He clapped Johnny on the back and said it was lucky Johnny wasn’t one of his kids, or he’d have had something to say about it. Johnny didn’t look specially worried.”
“Jess was prodded awake by the tow of somebody’s shoe. The somebody bent down, peering at her in the gloomy first light. She smelled bilious breath and heard a voice mumbling: ‘What’ve we got? A bleedin’ varmint in my place. Out th’goes!”
“It was dark when I heard it. I’d been asleep. God knows how. I guess it was my mind’s way of denying reality. Anyway, I woke up suddenly and there was this awful noise; a sort of moaning, and a shuffling sound outside the bunker.”
“Jarl heard the shout as his tired arms lifted and fell at his paddling, and his legs, starting to rub raw, gripped the wayward raft which he straddled. For a moment, he thought it was the cry of the seabirds that were stirring in the morning.”