WORDS QUOTES V

quotations about words

Words can carry any burden we wish. All that's required is agreement and a tradition upon which to build.

FRANK HERBERT

God Emperor of Dune


Flaubert's famous search for the "mot juste" was not a search for words that glow alone, but for words so precisely placed that in combination with other words, also precisely placed, they carve out a shape in space and time.

STANLEY FISH

How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One

Tags: Gustave Flaubert


Words are the only bullets in truth's bandolier. And poets are the snipers.

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion

Tags: Dan Simmons


I am spoken to not in words, which come to me quaint and veiled, but in signs, in conformations of face and hands, in postures of shoulders and feet, in nuances of tune and tone, in gaps and absences whose grammar has never been recorded.

J. M. COETZEE

In the Heart of the Country


The words of God are deeds.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets -- no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!

PHILIP ROTH

Portnoy's Complaint

Tags: Philip Roth


Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.

AESCHYLUS

Prometheus Bound

Tags: Aeschylus


Words are but the bannerets of a great army, a few bits of waving color here and there; thoughts are the main body of the footman that march unseen below.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

Tags: Henry Ward Beecher


Words carried weight, some more than others, and it seemed to him that once you'd arranged them into phrases they stayed that way like bricks you'd laid in a wall and went on meaning what they said no matter what happened.

WILLIAM GAY

Provinces of Night

Tags: William Gay


Just pick words and put one of them after the other like a baby learning to walk, like a drunk carefully crossing the street.

WILLIAM GAY

Provinces of Night

Tags: William Gay


Today it is even more important to acknowledge that words should matter and are very important. That importance, however, stems from them being the only game in town. That is, they are, for most of us, the only tool we have to communicate. While this is true I must also say that today no one should worship words, because on close inspection they do not hold up to scrutiny.

DAVID BUCIENSKI

"How much do words really matter?", Southgate News Herald, March 9, 2017


Words don't just change meanings randomly -- rather, implications hanging over a word gradually become what the word means. SUN implies HEAT. In a language, one might talk about getting some 'sun' in the meaning of warming up. After a while, in that language the word SUN may actually mean nothing but HEAT, something that would happen step by step, under the radar.

JOHN H. MCWHORTER

"Not so lost in translation: How are words related?", The Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 2016


Written words as well as spoken words are not always taken the way they are meant to be taken, so never hesitate to ask, "I am not sure what you mean by that?" Facial expressions and tone of voice play a large role in our understanding, but communication is the key to living in harmony with others.

ELIZABETH SCHADRACK

"Valley Voice: Common sense moves can ease societal woes", The Desert Sun, February 10, 2016


No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

HENRY ADAMS

The Education of Henry Adams

Tags: Henry Adams


If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place.

GEORGE ELIOT

The Mill on the Floss

Tags: George Eliot


You can attach connotations or anything you want to a word, but, at the end of the day, it still means the same thing.

RUTH MWANGOMO

"Words' gray area: Reappropriation", The Shorthorn, March 29, 2017


Words are the part of silence that can be spoken.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

The Stone Gods

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don't play their game!

BEN STILLER

Zoolander


Words are soldiers of fortune
Hired by different ideas.

MAXWELL BODENHEIM

"Impulsive Dialogue"

Tags: Maxwell Bodenheim