Phone Quotes

“Voicemail #1: “Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of … your mother. Call me.”

Voicemail #2: The first minute and thirty seconds of “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees.

Voicemail #3: “I’m bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone! I find all these old expressions unnecessarily violent. Like, ring around the rosy. That’s about the plague, did you know? Of course you did. The plague is, like, your older cousin. Hey, does Sam talk to you? He says jack shit to me. God, I’m bored. Call me.”

Voicemail #4: “Hotel California” by the Eagles, in its entirety, with every instance of the word California replaced with Minnesota.

Voicemail #5: “Hi, this is Cole St. Clair. Want to know two true things? One, you’re never picking up this phone. Two, I’m never going to stop leaving long messages. It’s like therapy. Gotta talk to someone. Hey, you know what I figured out today? Victor’s dead. I figured it out yesterday, too. Every day I figure it out again. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like there’s no one I can —”

Voicemail #6: “So, yeah, I’m sorry. That last message went a little pear-shaped. You like that expression? Sam said it the other day. Hey, try this theory on for size: I think he’s a dead British housewife reincarnated into a Beatle’s body. You know, I used to know this band that put on fake British accents for their shows. Boy, did they suck, aside from being assholes. I can’t remember their name now. I’m either getting senile or I’ve done enough to my brain that stuff’s falling out. Not so fair of me to make this one-sided, is it? I’m always talking about myself in these things. So, how are you, Isabel Rosemary Culpeper? Smile lately? Hot Toddies. That was the name of the band. The Hot Toddies.”

Voicemail #20: “I wish you’d answer.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Forever

“There is no such thing as a good call at 7 AM. It's been my experience that all calls between the hours of 11 PM and 9 AM are disaster calls.”
― Janet Evanovich

“all those nights with the phone warming the side of my face like the sun.”
― Warsan Shire

“When the river of emotions bursts its banks and expectations go over the edges of reality, the brain creates hallucinations. Ringxiety-stricken people feel illusive vibrating alerts and hear phantom phone rings, since absence of ringing generates scaring emptiness and destroys their self-esteem. ("Kein Schwein ruft mich an" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“I hate the phone. It is the worst invention in the history of the world, because if you don’t talk, nothing happens. You can’t get by with simply listening and nodding your head in all the right places. You have to talk. You have no option. It takes away my freedom of nonspeech.”
― Alice Oseman, Solitaire

“There comes a time in a man's life when he hears the call of the sea. "Hey, YOU!" are the sea's exact words.
If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately.”
― Dave Barry, Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

“Maybe I should call Aaya!(Shigure)
If you call him...(Yuki)
I'll make you eat that phone.(Kyou)

-Shigure-san,Yuki-san, Kyou-kun Shoma”
― Natsuki Takaya

“Not returning phone calls is the severest form of torture in the civilized world.”
― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics

“My phone is on my bed, whispering in my ear like a bottle of scotch to a recovering alcoholic, while the rain continues cackling at me through my window.”
― Katja Millay

“We are loved way more by some of the people who have not contacted us in the last twelve or so months than we are loved by some of those who contact us every twelve or so days … or hours.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“It's easier for a rich man to ride that camel through the eye of a needle directly into the Kingdom of Heaven, than for some of us to give up our cell phone.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“The phone is an instrument of intrusion into order. It is a threat to control. Just when you think you are alone and safe, the call could come that changes your life. Or someone else's. It makes the same flat, mechanical noise for everyone and gives no clues what's waiting there on the other end of the line. You can never be too careful.”
― Janice Galloway, The Trick is to Keep Breathing

“The bilateral illusion of unilateral attention was almost infantilely gratifying from an emotional standpoint: you got to believe you were receiving somebody's complete attention without having to return it. Regarded with the objectivity of hindsight, the illusion appears arational, almost literally fantastic: it would be like being able to both lie and to trust other people at the same time.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“He hadn't suffered the eternity of the ring about to be picked up, didn't know the heart rush of hearing that incomparable voice suddenly linked with his own, the sense it gave of being too close to even see her, of being actually inside her ear.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“The phone rang. Softly, in actuality, yet it seemed loud and ominous, as phones do at night in dark hotel rooms.”
― Jim Thompson, The Nothing Man

“The mobile phone acts as a cursor to connect the digital and physical.”
― Marissa Mayer

“In case you’re not bright enough to figure it out, there’s a real upside to having a sinner like me answer your phone. I lie, and your conscience stays clear.”
― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Ain't She Sweet?

“When the phone rings at 2.15am in the morning it's unlikely to be heralding something pleasant. What chance is there of its being good news? None. Only someone bad would ring at such an hour. Or someone with bad news.”
― Ben Elton, Blast from the Past

“I shouted into the phone, but there was no reply. Silence floated up from the receiver like smoke from the mouth of a gun.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“É um vazio todo peculiar que surge quando, numa cidade estranha, a pessoa disca números de telefone em vão. Quando ninguém atende, é uma decepção de alcance transcendente, como se esses números aleatórios fossem uma questão de vida ou morte.”
― Winfried Georg Sebald, Vertigo

“When you chronically interrupt your time with whom ever you're with to answer your phone/text you are saying that the caller is more important.”
― Jayce O'Neal

“Tunapenda kuamini kwa sababu kuamini hurahisisha mambo… Usiamini. Jua.”
― Enock Maregesi

“And no you're not that important that you must always dismiss your current company to answer whomever is on the phone. Seriously, you're not.”
― Jayce O'Neal

“Kuamini (mbali na imani, ambayo ni nia ya kujua kisichoweza kujulikana) ni kwa ajili ya vitu usivyoweza kuvielezea. Unaamini kwamba siku moja dawa ya UKIMWI au saratani itapatikana mahali fulani, ilhali huwezi kufanya majaribio ya kisayansi kulithibitisha hilo. Unaweza kusubiri hata miaka mia, lakini kama bado dawa haijapatikana, unaweza kusubiri hata miaka mingine mia. Kuamini ni kujifanya kujua (na mara nyingi kujifanya kujua ni uongo) na kuamini hakuhitaji maarifa. Kujua kunahitaji maarifa na ni kuamini unakoweza kukuthibitisha. Ukiniuliza kama simu yangu ipo mfukoni nitakwambia ndiyo ipo, kwa sababu nitaingiza mkono mfukoni na kuitoa na kuiona. Siamini kama ipo mfukoni, najua.”
― Enock Maregesi

“You want my advice? Put down your phone. Hug her from behind and kiss the back of her neck. Entwine your fingers with hers…. You’re welcome.”
― Steve Maraboli

“I am not scared of the dark! I simply have chronic intractable nyctophobia!”
― Jonathan Trueman, The Treacle People: Still Sticky

“...devices keep them occupied, and like babies given a pacifier or a breast, they fall silent and begin to entertain themselves quietly with them. However, when those devices are taken away, their addicted selves transform them into beings who make nothing but noise. Their minds are so utterly empty—yet so utterly stubborn—that when silence arises, the only thing they do is suppress it and return to making noise.”
― Sov8840

“Whether lying in bed, sitting, eating, on the toilet, pushing a stroller, walking the dog, shopping, walking, “listening” to others, talking, driving, crossing the street, waiting in line, brushing their teeth, watching a movie, attending a meeting, having a conversation, engaging in sexual intercourse, arguing, showering, at a funeral, in a lecture, or during a family meal—even in moments of supposed intimacy or solitude—they always have their phones in their hands. The device is there. Always there. Even in DPRK—a country they tirelessly insult, hate, and belittle for being “anti-democracy”—one would be hard-pressed to find such addicted beings populating every street, mechanically wandering about like reverse L-shapes, their “opiums” (i.e., phones) in hand.”
― Sov8840

“If there is no phone, there is noise; but if there is a phone, there is silence—just as a crying, unruly baby suddenly falls silent upon receiving the mother’s nipple.”
― Sov8840

“Wired"

Too many secrets to keep
Sharks: worn out
digging the ocean deep
Submarine days: long gone, over!
Drunken leaders hang on to hangover
For girls: summer time pullover
For men: sundress in October
Is this season disorderly?
Nope, but all things: set in orderly
Who's going to waste our time anyway
when we walk in the clouds leaving the sunny way?
No matter where we live
in a city: dirty or pretty
What are we today
without electricity?
We are nothing
without a wire or a cord
Without slicing apple or berry
what can we afford?
But without a charger
we can get larger
than a swollen battery
As we're overcharged with flattery
already...
Are you ready?
To be charged with us
during this time: grievous?
Then don't be wireless
Stay desireless!”
― Munia Khan, The Half Circle