WORDS QUOTES V

quotations about words

Words frequently surrender power to the opposer.

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


I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing.

DORIS LESSING

The Golden Notebook


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


A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

CHARLES DICKENS

Bleak House

Tags: Charles Dickens


A good word costs as little as a bad one, and is worth more.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE

Moral and Religious Aphorisms

Tags: Benjamin Whichcote


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

BEN STILLER

Zoolander


Words are so last year.

BEANO

Twitter post, March 31, 2017


Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate...

ANNE CARSON

Nox

Tags: Anne Carson


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


Not content with the million or so words they already have at their disposal, English speakers are adding new ones at the rate of around 1,000 a year. Recent dictionary debutants include blog, grok, crowdfunding, hackathon, airball, e-marketing, sudoku, twerk and Brexit.

ANDY BODLE

"How new words are born", The Guardian, February 4, 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


All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words.

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

We

Tags: Yevgeny Zamyatin


Words don't tell you what people are thinking. Rarely do we use words to really tell. We use words to sell people or to convince people or to make them admire us. It's all disguise. It's all hidden -- a secret language.

ROBERT ALTMAN

Esquire, March 2004

Tags: Robert Altman


As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word.

RICHARD GARNETT

De Flagello Myrtes

Tags: Richard Garnett


Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.

NEALE DONALD WALSCH

Conversations with God

Tags: Neale Donald Walsch


Words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Tags: Jeanette Winterson


Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Foundation and Empire

Tags: Isaac Asimov


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


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