Quotations about the Colors of Voices and Sound-Color Synesthesia
Welcome to my page of quotations about the color of voices and sounds. This includes metaphorical and poetical descriptions, as well as voice-color synesthesia, sound-to-color synesthesia, chromesthesia, color-hearing, chromatism, etc.
—tg
SEE ALSO:
COLOR OF WORDS,
COLOR,
RED,
ORANGE,
YELLOW,
GREEN,
BLUE,
PURPLE,
PINK,
GRAY,
BROWN,
MUSIC & SINGING,
RADIO,
STORYTELLING,
BODY,
SOUL,
LANGUAGE,
POETIC LICENSE,
IMAGINATION,
LISTENING,
SPEAKING,
FROZEN WORDS
CURSING,
MIND,
PSYCHOLOGY,
GENIUS,
PEOPLE
There are perhaps fifty shades of gray in color: and a thousand shades of feeling in people's voices. ~“A Hundred Thoughts,” Every Where, June 1909, Brooklyn, New York, conducted by Will Carleton
If you have the colour-sense, you will know that a purple voice is the sweetest of all. ~A. J. Anderson, "The Dark Side of the Salon," 1908
God has a brown voice,
as soft and full as beer...
~Anne Sexton, "For Eleanor Boylan Talking with God," 1962
What a crumbly, yellow voice you have. ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky (d.1958), as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
Margarete Matzenauer reveled in the gorgeous opulence of her royal purple voice. ~H. E. Krehbiel, 1920
He has suddenly, without a word of warning, gone in for Art. He paints portraits. You never saw such things — blots, and smears, and a regular mess. He does nothing but blether about tones, and values, and the colors of sounds. He says that Agnes has a pink voice, and he painted her voice. Everything about it is pink — except her face, and that is violet. He says that he sees her that way. He painted another woman as ‘The Purple Smile.’ ~Pearl Mary-Teresa Richards Craigie, The School for Saints, 1897[A little altered. Published under Mrs Craigie's pseudonym, John Oliver Hobbes. –tg]
Scarlet as the voice of trumpets... ~Anne Knish (Arthur Davison Ficke), "Opus 134," Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments, 1916
Her voice that was the color of autumn,
Bruised with the burnt cry of maples
And the deep blue-purple of the after-sunset hills,
Her voice that knew the undertones of bronze
And copper and crimson leaves,
That touched the whisper of summer's dying
And the cold dawn glitter of the first white frost,
Is still. Her voice is silenced. Her voice is lost.
But autumn
Goes on forever
Crying,
Crying.
~Frances M. Frost, "Requiem for an Autumn Singer," Hemlock Wall, 1929
In another place, at another time, Alette Peters could have been a successful artist. As far back as she could remember, her senses were tuned to the nuances of color. She could see colors, smell colors and hear colors. Her father's voice was blue and sometimes red. Her mother's voice was dark brown. Her teacher's voice was yellow. The grocer's voice was purple. The sound of the wind in the trees was green. The sound of running water was gray. ~Sidney Sheldon, Tell Me Your Dreams, 1998
The best voices, whether blue or green or lavender, are full of flashes of light. ~John Rummell, "The Color of Sound," in Werner's Magazine, 1897
Came forth a deep, purple voice, "Come, we are losing time!" ~Alice Woods Ullman, A Gingham Rose, 1904
Her words evoked textures and echoes, the color of voices, the rhythm of footsteps. ~Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind, 2001, translated from Spanish by Lucia Graves, 2004
From the other side of the stone wall came a deep, dark brown voice. "Gentlemen," said the voice, "you have heard the testimony against the accused. What is your verdict?"
"Guilty!" replied another ominous voice, dark blue in color. ~Kenneth L. Roberts, "A Deserved Sentence," in Puck, 1917
It started one day when my younger son said "Mummy, that man has a 'brown' voice." We all listened, and sure enough you couldn't describe it in any other colour. It was the voice of Andy Cowan Martin. We listened for other brown voices. There was Jack Train, Ralph Wightman, and Jimmy Edwards — though, as our nine-year-old pointed out, they were different shades of brown. Jimmy Edwards's voice has warm orange in it, and Ralph Wightman's is dark brown. Jack Buchanan has a khaki-coloured voice. We are all quite decided that Nancy Spain's voice is pink, and the laugh of Bebe Daniels is definitely yellow. When it comes to news announcers we can't be sure. They seem to be just black and white. ~Radio Times, 1955
Fœdric is a scholar and is engaged in writing a treatise on the color of sounds. He was attracted to that subject by the fact that he possesses in a striking degree the faculty of hearing color, which belongs only to refined minds. We all have this power to some extent, but there are great differences among us. The doctor's voice is dark blue, while yours is yellow. Fœdric, a true son of Mars, speaks red, and as for Zenith, her soft, pink voice has always been one of her principal charms. Antonia's voice is a beautiful green. ~James Cowan, "Again the Moon," Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World, 1896[a little altered –tg]
...a leaf-green voice... ~Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
When you are enacting a part, think of your voice as a colour, and, as you paint your picture, mix your colors. You have on your palate a white voice, la voix blanche; a heavenly, ethereal or blue voice, the voice of prayer; a disagreeable, jealous, or yellow voice; a steel-gray voice, for quiet sarcasm; a brown voice of hopelessness; a lurid, red voice of hot rage; a deep, thunderous voice of black; a cheery voice, the colour of the green sea that a brisk breeze is crisping; and then there is a pretty little pink voice, and shades of violet. ~Richard Mansfield, address to graduates of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1901
I have to rely on my friends to tell me the shade of my own voice, for to my ears it is as colorless as a piece of the clearest glass. ~James Cowan, "Again the Moon," Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World, 1896
It is very often possible to tell the nationality of an individual by the color of his voice alone. The English and German voices are commonly red or reddish-brown, while the French voice, especially in men, is very frequently green. The Italian voice is rather darker, being tinted with blue, lavender or indigo. Of course, there are exceptions to all these types. ~John Rummell, "The Color of Sound," in Werner's Magazine, 1897[a little altered –tg]
So one time I went to buy some ice cream... I walked over to the vender and asked her what kind of ice cream she had. "Fruit ice cream," she said. But she answered in such a tone that a whole pile of coals, of black cinders, came bursting out of her mouth, and I couldn't bring myself to buy any ice cream after she'd answered that way… ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky, 1939, as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
The black bark of a dog
Made patterns against the night.
And little leaves flute-noted across the moon.
~Anne Knish (Arthur Davison Ficke), "Opus 191," Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments, 1916[farce —tg]
There are, in fact, persons who are endowed with such sensibility that they can not hear a sound without at the same time perceiving colours. This phenomenon, "colour-hearing," as the English call it, has been hitherto little observed... For one subject, the human voice gives multifarious impressions. The vowels i and e produce the most lively colours, a and o less defined ones, u a dark tint, and diphthongs combined colours. ~Henri de Parville, "Association of Colours with Sounds," 1883
According to M. Pedrono, this friend of his had no trouble in his eyes or ears. His hearing was good, his sight perfect, and his general health excellent. Yet the chromatic sensitiveness was so sharp that the luminous impression seemed to be made a little while before the sonorous one; and, before it was possible to judge the quality and intensity of the sound, he had already seen and already knew whether it was red, blue, yellow, or of other color. ~Henri de Parville, "Association of Colours with Sounds," 1883
Loud noises bring out brilliant colors. Very sharp tones determine a grayish sensation, that passes to a bright silver-white when they become intense. ~Henri de Parville, "Association of Colours with Sounds," 1883
Well, that might be because time is a circle but it's also sometimes a line. See, you're either experiencing something in the past that you would have experienced in the future, or you're remembering something that already happened that you haven't seen yet. Also, did you know that you can taste colors? ~The Middle,"Halloween IV: The Ghost Story," 2013, written by Roy Brown [S5, E5, Brick]
I. Lilli Lehmann sang Isoldes Liebestod.
A blur of sunsetred was in her tone
That sank in beauty where the waves were sheen—
An evertwilit sea whose pallors shone
Strangely along redridden wash of green.
II. Ernestine Schumann-Heink sang Ortrud.
Blazed through the dark that orange voice of hers—
Fire behind where, firmmeshed, the grille upgrew
Of horn and drum and viol, barriers
My clinging soul, unscorched, peers safely through.
III. Emma Calvé sang Carmen.
Too yellow all these lights and those gilt things
Theatric morethanyellow. Oh, be dim,
Gay world, and let our ears see! Lo, she sings
In primrosesamite of the seraphim.
IV. Johanna Gadski sang Elisabeth.
In every simple Maytime, all the light
Reflectable nuances of a seafloored noon,
See I such tones of green; but best, fullnight,
When through my garden looks the dreamy moon.
V. Nellie Melba sang Violetta.
Skies are thought blue, and blossomchalices
Brimmed with May rain.—But only certain eyes
Can mate the veryblue that music is
And it alone such blueness melodize.
VI. Lillian Nordica sang Leonora.
One pale lamp swayed within a richhung hall;
Fair folk swung by in tapestries arow,
Sad, rhythmic, ever in pairs. And under all
Went long, smooth, shadowy floors of indigo.
VII. Emme Eames sang Elsa.
And I am little again, and it is spring!
The violets by the mossy rock are wet.
'Tis nothing strange that violets can sing,
Nor aught that song is only violet.
~Arthur Upson, "Quatrains of Seven Singing Ladies," Poems by Arthur Upson & George Norton Northrop, 1902
You read. Your low voice thridded on full fine
My tuneful dream.—Have you not marveled oft
To follow where some cord of gold did shine
Through fabrics manyfigured, strange and soft?
Even so your golden tone ran through those thoughts of mine!
It seems you read some nimble new romance
Of modern love; but less the tale I heard
Than the dear voice that gave it utterance:
And less the sense than color of each word
Taking some vivid hue as off your lips it stirred.
~Arthur Upson, "Songs of Sound Color," Poems by Arthur Upson & George Norton Northrop, 1902
...I would tell
More amply of the Colors that did fit
Into your tranquil voice's soothing spell,
And how the path wound on, and I with it,
A winding gemset course to lure my errant wit.
I never heard such Colors were in Sound,
Such slips of Color woven in a tone;
I never knew, in all their mellow round,
Such ripe reds and such golds as there were shown.
And 'twas your voice that read else I had never known.
~Arthur Upson, "Songs of Sound Color," Poems by Arthur Upson & George Norton Northrop, 1902
You know there are people who seem to have many voices, whose voices seem to be an entire composition, a bouquet. The late S. M. Eisenstein had just such a voice: listening to him, it was as though a flame with fibers protruding from it was advancing right toward me. I got so interested in his voice, I couldn't follow what he was saying… ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky (d.1958), as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
Then I got up to come in and write to you... but first stopped to speak to a gorgeous solitary dandelion. I stroked it gently, and said 'Hullo, wee brother, isn't the world beautiful? Hold up your wee head and rejoice!' And it turned up its wee golden nose and said 'Keep your hair on, you old Skidamalink, I'm rejoicing as hard as ever I can. I'm always rejoicing..." So we laughed, and parted — but he called me back, and said gently in a wee soft goldy-yellow voice, 'Don't think me rude, Brother of Joy. It's only my way. I love you because you love me and don't despise me. Shake pinkies!' — so I gave him a pinkie and he gave me a wee golden-yellow pinkie-petal… ~William Sharp, 1905
After hearing one day about the possibilities of color hearing, I went home and said to my mother, "Mother, what color is my voice?" Without hesitation and as if I had simply asked her the color of a book-cover, she replied, "Dove-color." I expressed my surprise that she should hear color. "Why," said she, "I have always heard color. When I went to school, there was a little girl whom I disliked very much because she had such a yellow voice." ~Mary Dana Hicks Prang, "Color Hearing," 1923
...a high voice is as little really high as it is really white... ~Vernon Lee, "Signor Curiazio: A Musical Medley," c.1884
Whence comes that magic jasmined breeze
Again—sweet quivering mysteries
From yon blue isle of sorceries
Echo a laugh divine!
The looms of twilight wove her hair,
Her voice was violet breath;
To hold her were a god's despair,
Her flower-kiss was death...
~Lucile du Pré, "Circe," Poems, 1923
A drunkard shuffling his slipshod feet
Towards his dreary starving home,
Sings in an even yellow voice:
Sings of pleasures he has never tasted,
But sings with full conviction.
~Sacheverell Sitwell, "Barrel-Organs," The People's Palace, 1918
...answered the metallic voice with the quirk in the tail of it. ~S. R. Crockett, Lochinvar, 1898
If I read when I eat, I have a hard time understanding what I'm reading — the taste of the food drowns out the sense… ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky, 1939, as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
We're all synesthetes. There are cross-connections going on in all of us, except we're not consciously aware of them. And so, what makes synesthetes different is that they simply have more cross-connections than you or I do, and they are also consciously aware that they have them... Synesthetes simply have a different texture of reality, a different point of view. ~Richard E. Cytowic, on The UnXplained, "Superhuman Senses," 2020,S2, E2, HISTORY Channel, history.com, cytowic.net
Synesthesia shows that we sense the world in a much more integrated way than we think we do. ~Richard E. Cytowic, on The UnXplained, "Superhuman Senses," 2020,S2, E2, HISTORY Channel, history.com, cytowic.net
If you have the colour-sense, you will know that a purple voice is the sweetest of all. ~A. J. Anderson, "The Dark Side of the Salon," 1908
God has a brown voice,
as soft and full as beer...
~Anne Sexton, "For Eleanor Boylan Talking with God," 1962
What a crumbly, yellow voice you have. ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky (d.1958), as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
Margarete Matzenauer reveled in the gorgeous opulence of her royal purple voice. ~H. E. Krehbiel, 1920
He has suddenly, without a word of warning, gone in for Art. He paints portraits. You never saw such things — blots, and smears, and a regular mess. He does nothing but blether about tones, and values, and the colors of sounds. He says that Agnes has a pink voice, and he painted her voice. Everything about it is pink — except her face, and that is violet. He says that he sees her that way. He painted another woman as ‘The Purple Smile.’ ~Pearl Mary-Teresa Richards Craigie, The School for Saints, 1897
Scarlet as the voice of trumpets... ~Anne Knish (Arthur Davison Ficke), "Opus 134," Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments, 1916
Her voice that was the color of autumn,
Bruised with the burnt cry of maples
And the deep blue-purple of the after-sunset hills,
Her voice that knew the undertones of bronze
And copper and crimson leaves,
That touched the whisper of summer's dying
And the cold dawn glitter of the first white frost,
Is still. Her voice is silenced. Her voice is lost.
But autumn
Goes on forever
Crying,
Crying.
~Frances M. Frost, "Requiem for an Autumn Singer," Hemlock Wall, 1929
In another place, at another time, Alette Peters could have been a successful artist. As far back as she could remember, her senses were tuned to the nuances of color. She could see colors, smell colors and hear colors. Her father's voice was blue and sometimes red. Her mother's voice was dark brown. Her teacher's voice was yellow. The grocer's voice was purple. The sound of the wind in the trees was green. The sound of running water was gray. ~Sidney Sheldon, Tell Me Your Dreams, 1998
The best voices, whether blue or green or lavender, are full of flashes of light. ~John Rummell, "The Color of Sound," in Werner's Magazine, 1897
Came forth a deep, purple voice, "Come, we are losing time!" ~Alice Woods Ullman, A Gingham Rose, 1904
Her words evoked textures and echoes, the color of voices, the rhythm of footsteps. ~Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind, 2001, translated from Spanish by Lucia Graves, 2004
From the other side of the stone wall came a deep, dark brown voice. "Gentlemen," said the voice, "you have heard the testimony against the accused. What is your verdict?"
"Guilty!" replied another ominous voice, dark blue in color. ~Kenneth L. Roberts, "A Deserved Sentence," in Puck, 1917
It started one day when my younger son said "Mummy, that man has a 'brown' voice." We all listened, and sure enough you couldn't describe it in any other colour. It was the voice of Andy Cowan Martin. We listened for other brown voices. There was Jack Train, Ralph Wightman, and Jimmy Edwards — though, as our nine-year-old pointed out, they were different shades of brown. Jimmy Edwards's voice has warm orange in it, and Ralph Wightman's is dark brown. Jack Buchanan has a khaki-coloured voice. We are all quite decided that Nancy Spain's voice is pink, and the laugh of Bebe Daniels is definitely yellow. When it comes to news announcers we can't be sure. They seem to be just black and white. ~Radio Times, 1955
Fœdric is a scholar and is engaged in writing a treatise on the color of sounds. He was attracted to that subject by the fact that he possesses in a striking degree the faculty of hearing color, which belongs only to refined minds. We all have this power to some extent, but there are great differences among us. The doctor's voice is dark blue, while yours is yellow. Fœdric, a true son of Mars, speaks red, and as for Zenith, her soft, pink voice has always been one of her principal charms. Antonia's voice is a beautiful green. ~James Cowan, "Again the Moon," Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World, 1896
...a leaf-green voice... ~Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
When you are enacting a part, think of your voice as a colour, and, as you paint your picture, mix your colors. You have on your palate a white voice, la voix blanche; a heavenly, ethereal or blue voice, the voice of prayer; a disagreeable, jealous, or yellow voice; a steel-gray voice, for quiet sarcasm; a brown voice of hopelessness; a lurid, red voice of hot rage; a deep, thunderous voice of black; a cheery voice, the colour of the green sea that a brisk breeze is crisping; and then there is a pretty little pink voice, and shades of violet. ~Richard Mansfield, address to graduates of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1901
I have to rely on my friends to tell me the shade of my own voice, for to my ears it is as colorless as a piece of the clearest glass. ~James Cowan, "Again the Moon," Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World, 1896
It is very often possible to tell the nationality of an individual by the color of his voice alone. The English and German voices are commonly red or reddish-brown, while the French voice, especially in men, is very frequently green. The Italian voice is rather darker, being tinted with blue, lavender or indigo. Of course, there are exceptions to all these types. ~John Rummell, "The Color of Sound," in Werner's Magazine, 1897
So one time I went to buy some ice cream... I walked over to the vender and asked her what kind of ice cream she had. "Fruit ice cream," she said. But she answered in such a tone that a whole pile of coals, of black cinders, came bursting out of her mouth, and I couldn't bring myself to buy any ice cream after she'd answered that way… ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky, 1939, as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
The black bark of a dog
Made patterns against the night.
And little leaves flute-noted across the moon.
~Anne Knish (Arthur Davison Ficke), "Opus 191," Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments, 1916
There are, in fact, persons who are endowed with such sensibility that they can not hear a sound without at the same time perceiving colours. This phenomenon, "colour-hearing," as the English call it, has been hitherto little observed... For one subject, the human voice gives multifarious impressions. The vowels i and e produce the most lively colours, a and o less defined ones, u a dark tint, and diphthongs combined colours. ~Henri de Parville, "Association of Colours with Sounds," 1883
According to M. Pedrono, this friend of his had no trouble in his eyes or ears. His hearing was good, his sight perfect, and his general health excellent. Yet the chromatic sensitiveness was so sharp that the luminous impression seemed to be made a little while before the sonorous one; and, before it was possible to judge the quality and intensity of the sound, he had already seen and already knew whether it was red, blue, yellow, or of other color. ~Henri de Parville, "Association of Colours with Sounds," 1883
Loud noises bring out brilliant colors. Very sharp tones determine a grayish sensation, that passes to a bright silver-white when they become intense. ~Henri de Parville, "Association of Colours with Sounds," 1883
Well, that might be because time is a circle but it's also sometimes a line. See, you're either experiencing something in the past that you would have experienced in the future, or you're remembering something that already happened that you haven't seen yet. Also, did you know that you can taste colors? ~The Middle,
I. Lilli Lehmann sang Isoldes Liebestod.
A blur of sunsetred was in her tone
That sank in beauty where the waves were sheen—
An evertwilit sea whose pallors shone
Strangely along redridden wash of green.
II. Ernestine Schumann-Heink sang Ortrud.
Blazed through the dark that orange voice of hers—
Fire behind where, firmmeshed, the grille upgrew
Of horn and drum and viol, barriers
My clinging soul, unscorched, peers safely through.
III. Emma Calvé sang Carmen.
Too yellow all these lights and those gilt things
Theatric morethanyellow. Oh, be dim,
Gay world, and let our ears see! Lo, she sings
In primrosesamite of the seraphim.
IV. Johanna Gadski sang Elisabeth.
In every simple Maytime, all the light
Reflectable nuances of a seafloored noon,
See I such tones of green; but best, fullnight,
When through my garden looks the dreamy moon.
V. Nellie Melba sang Violetta.
Skies are thought blue, and blossomchalices
Brimmed with May rain.—But only certain eyes
Can mate the veryblue that music is
And it alone such blueness melodize.
VI. Lillian Nordica sang Leonora.
One pale lamp swayed within a richhung hall;
Fair folk swung by in tapestries arow,
Sad, rhythmic, ever in pairs. And under all
Went long, smooth, shadowy floors of indigo.
VII. Emme Eames sang Elsa.
And I am little again, and it is spring!
The violets by the mossy rock are wet.
'Tis nothing strange that violets can sing,
Nor aught that song is only violet.
~Arthur Upson, "Quatrains of Seven Singing Ladies," Poems by Arthur Upson & George Norton Northrop, 1902
You read. Your low voice thridded on full fine
My tuneful dream.—Have you not marveled oft
To follow where some cord of gold did shine
Through fabrics manyfigured, strange and soft?
Even so your golden tone ran through those thoughts of mine!
It seems you read some nimble new romance
Of modern love; but less the tale I heard
Than the dear voice that gave it utterance:
And less the sense than color of each word
Taking some vivid hue as off your lips it stirred.
~Arthur Upson, "Songs of Sound Color," Poems by Arthur Upson & George Norton Northrop, 1902
...I would tell
More amply of the Colors that did fit
Into your tranquil voice's soothing spell,
And how the path wound on, and I with it,
A winding gemset course to lure my errant wit.
I never heard such Colors were in Sound,
Such slips of Color woven in a tone;
I never knew, in all their mellow round,
Such ripe reds and such golds as there were shown.
And 'twas your voice that read else I had never known.
~Arthur Upson, "Songs of Sound Color," Poems by Arthur Upson & George Norton Northrop, 1902
You know there are people who seem to have many voices, whose voices seem to be an entire composition, a bouquet. The late S. M. Eisenstein had just such a voice: listening to him, it was as though a flame with fibers protruding from it was advancing right toward me. I got so interested in his voice, I couldn't follow what he was saying… ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky (d.1958), as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
Then I got up to come in and write to you... but first stopped to speak to a gorgeous solitary dandelion. I stroked it gently, and said 'Hullo, wee brother, isn't the world beautiful? Hold up your wee head and rejoice!' And it turned up its wee golden nose and said 'Keep your hair on, you old Skidamalink, I'm rejoicing as hard as ever I can. I'm always rejoicing..." So we laughed, and parted — but he called me back, and said gently in a wee soft goldy-yellow voice, 'Don't think me rude, Brother of Joy. It's only my way. I love you because you love me and don't despise me. Shake pinkies!' — so I gave him a pinkie and he gave me a wee golden-yellow pinkie-petal… ~William Sharp, 1905
After hearing one day about the possibilities of color hearing, I went home and said to my mother, "Mother, what color is my voice?" Without hesitation and as if I had simply asked her the color of a book-cover, she replied, "Dove-color." I expressed my surprise that she should hear color. "Why," said she, "I have always heard color. When I went to school, there was a little girl whom I disliked very much because she had such a yellow voice." ~Mary Dana Hicks Prang, "Color Hearing," 1923
...a high voice is as little really high as it is really white... ~Vernon Lee, "Signor Curiazio: A Musical Medley," c.1884
Whence comes that magic jasmined breeze
Again—sweet quivering mysteries
From yon blue isle of sorceries
Echo a laugh divine!
The looms of twilight wove her hair,
Her voice was violet breath;
To hold her were a god's despair,
Her flower-kiss was death...
~Lucile du Pré, "Circe," Poems, 1923
A drunkard shuffling his slipshod feet
Towards his dreary starving home,
Sings in an even yellow voice:
Sings of pleasures he has never tasted,
But sings with full conviction.
~Sacheverell Sitwell, "Barrel-Organs," The People's Palace, 1918
...answered the metallic voice with the quirk in the tail of it. ~S. R. Crockett, Lochinvar, 1898
If I read when I eat, I have a hard time understanding what I'm reading — the taste of the food drowns out the sense… ~Solomon V. Shereshevsky, 1939, as quoted in A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory, translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff, 1968
We're all synesthetes. There are cross-connections going on in all of us, except we're not consciously aware of them. And so, what makes synesthetes different is that they simply have more cross-connections than you or I do, and they are also consciously aware that they have them... Synesthetes simply have a different texture of reality, a different point of view. ~Richard E. Cytowic, on The UnXplained, "Superhuman Senses," 2020,
Synesthesia shows that we sense the world in a much more integrated way than we think we do. ~Richard E. Cytowic, on The UnXplained, "Superhuman Senses," 2020,