Quotes About Dictionary

The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.

there can exist no dictionary that will translate into words the burden of obscure allusions that lurks in these things

In all my years in 'Countdown's' Dictionary Corner, the subject most guaranteed to rankle with our viewers is the presence of Americanisms in the dictionary.

If there was a word in the dictionary to describe a woman as loving, wonderful, nurturing, caring and affectionate like you, I'd paint the whole world red with it. Since there is no such word, accept my humble wishes on your Happy Birthday!

The biologist Edwin Conklin, speaking of evolution, stated that the probability of life originating by accident is "comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary originating from an explosion in a print shop." That sounds very unscientific, coming from a scientist, but it's true.

Did Owen say your grandmother was a banshee? He said she was 'wailing like a banshee,' I explained. Dan got out the dictionary , then; he was clucking his tongue and shaking his head, and laughing at himself saying, That boy! What a boy! Brilliant but preposterous! And that was the first time I learned, literally, what a banshee was--a banshee, in Irish folklore, is a female spirit whose wailing is a sign that a loved one will soon die.

The dictionary definitions of words you are trying to replace are far more likely to help you out than a scattershot wad from a thesaurus.

The assurance from the dictionary had melted in the night.

The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.

If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between sh.. and syphilis in the dictionary.

On the other hand, you might decide to use operator overloading if you need to pass a user-defined object to a function that was coded to expect the operators available on a built-in type like a list or a dictionary.

If you wish to use this method, you can avoid loops by coding instance attribute assignments as assignments to attribute dictionary keys. That is, use self.__dict__['name'] = x, not self.name = x; because you're not assigning to __dict__ itself, this avoids the loop:

My dad used to say the best place to look for sympathy was somewhere between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.

The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.

Facts are not science - as dictionary is not literature.

Claudius knew a good deal about Etruscan history. Among his many learned researches he had written a twenty-volume study of the Etruscans, in Greek, as well as compiling an Etruscan dictionary.

The only place where housework comes before needlework is in the dictionary.

dude — A passive-aggressive euphemism for "motherfucker." —The New Devil's Dictionary

He is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and it's not about his face, but the life force I can see in him. It's the smile and the pure promise of everything he has to offer. Like he's saying, 'Here I am world, are you ready for so much passion and beauty and goodness and love and every other word that should be in the dictionary under the word life?

Cynicism has all the smart words on it's side; idealism uses a nursery school dictionary.

Acedia is not in every dictionary; just in every heart.

How come "burbled" gets to be in the Oxford English Dictionary but "tulgy" doesn't? Hm?

Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.