Quotes About Language

Sometimes I wish my first word was 'quote,' so that on my death bed, my last words could be 'end quote.'

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.

When there's no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon's only tool.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.

I want to make people cry even when they don't understand my words.

Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.

The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself.

Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.

Words are potent weapons for all causes, good or bad.

I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.

There are about 30 words around you all the time, like 'thread' or 'exit.'

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

I was so embarrassed about mispronouncing words. I just knew how to smile.

Before the scene, before the paragraph, even before the sentence, comes the word. Individual words and phrases are the building blocks of fiction, the genes that generate everything else. Use the right words, and your fiction can blossom. The French have a phrase for it - le mot juste - the exact right word in the exact right position.

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels.

A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects - things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language - either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

Words are but pictures of our thoughts.

I fear those big words which make us so unhappy.