Egbert van der Poel, “The Explosion of the Delft Magazine” (c. 1654), oil on canvas. Gemeente Musea, Delft (Image via Web Gallery of Art)
This week, North Korea went boom and China went bust.
Boom, crush. Night, losers. Winning, duh.
—Charlie Sheen
A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow. There’s nothing tangible of yesterday. All I can say I’ve done is agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes and then boom — it’s gone.
—Edward R. Murrow
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war.—G. K. Chesterton, “Lepanto”
There ain’t nothing like being in the corner, and the trainer is whispering in your ear and another guy is putting in your mouthpiece. Five seconds to go, the boom! The bell. It’s more exciting than looking down a cliff.
—George Foreman, quoted in Newsweek, January 26, 1976
I transcend earthly bounds. I never cease to amaze myself because I haven’t yet found my limits. I am quite ready to accept the limits of what I can do, but every time I feel that way — boom! — God touches me and I do something that’s even more stupendous than whatever I’ve done up to then.
—Don King
Bells are booming down the bohreens,
White the mist along the grass.
Now the Julias, Maeves, and Maureens
Move between the fields to Mass.—John Betjeman, “Ireland with Emily”
I guess now music is so saturated and so microwaved. It’s, like, 15 minutes in the microwave and boom, you’ve got something. Nobody’s putting passion or any thought behind it anymore.
—Young Jeezy
Imagine if Beethoven had a tape recorder. Then you’d know exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant ‘Da da da da’ instead of ‘Boom boom boom boom!’ Who knows?
—Eddie Van Halen
I remember back in Detroit, I used to go to the Apex Bar every night after I got off work. The bartender there used to call me Boom Boom. I don’t know why, but he did.
—John Lee Hooker
We’re going boom boom boom that’s the way we live
And in a great big room and that’s the way we live.—Talking Heads, “What a Day That Was”
Dear Bill, Well, kid, you sound like the boom-boom of William Walker’s bang-bang fink-fighters ass-kissers underground.
—Norman Mailer, letter to William Walker, 1962
If I had more recreation time I would be able to step back and reflect on how life has changed. But it has been like a constant… boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
—Shia LaBeouf
What they’re not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people. See where that goes.
—Charlie Sheen
Beware, beware, walk with care,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay,
BOOM.—Vachel Lindsay, “Congo”
