WORDS QUOTES V

quotations about words

One mild word ... will quench more heat than a bucket of water.

JOHN THORNTON

Maxims and Directions for Youth

Tags: John Thornton


If you can express yourself so as to be perfectly understood in ten words, never use a dozen.

HORACE MANN

Thoughts

Tags: Horace Mann


The proof of battle is action, proof of words, debate.

HOMER

The Iliad

Tags: Homer


Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word.

HEINRICH BÖLL

The Paris Review, spring 1983

Tags: Heinrich Böll


Written, spoken or read I've always been amazed how one or two words could encourage someone to keep going. Or a devastating sentence could painfully break a person's heart. Even a simple written phrase could change someone's life forever.

HEIDI ALLEN

"Words Are Powerful -- My Journey With Words", Huffington Post, March 14, 2017


It's tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you're not quite there and you're redoing it and redoing it and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard.

ELIZABETH STROUT

Newsweek, July 13, 2009

Tags: Elizabeth Strout


Words are but the shining garments of Thought.

EDWIN LEIBFREED

"The Song of the Soul"

Tags: Edwin Leibfreed


Words which enlighten some darken others.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


You must assume that your words are going to be repeated, misunderstood, or exaggerated by the person you "shared" with.

DREXEL GILBERT

"The top 5 words you should never say at work", New York Daily News, March 5, 2017


Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.

DAN SIMMONS

Olympos

Tags: Dan Simmons


You know, without my telling you, how sometimes a word or name eludes you, and you seek it through running ghosts of shadow -- leaping at it, lying in wait for it to spring upon it, spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, you hear it, see it flash among the branches, and scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it.

CONRAD AIKEN

The House of Dust

Tags: Conrad Aiken


Words are so last year.

BEANO

Twitter post, March 31, 2017


By words the mind is winged.

ARISTOPHANES

The Birds

Tags: Aristophanes


There are times when people aren't able to acknowledge or interpret an action but words are definite.

ANGIE JURGENS

"The power of words, through the eyes of a writer", Journal Star, January 30, 2016


In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

ALEXANDER POPE

An Essay on Criticism

Tags: Alexander Pope


After all is said and done, more is said than done.

AESOP

Aesop's Fables

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I was struck by the way in which meanings are historically attached to words: it is so accidental, so remote, so twisted. A word is like a schoolgirl's room--a complete mess--so the great thing is to make out a way of seeing it all as ordered, as right, as inferred and following.

WILLIAM H. GASS

The Paris Review, summer 1977


Words once sequenced into phrases were never done with but recycled themselves in perpetuity.

WILLIAM GAY

Provinces of Night


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


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