Quotes About Words

The tendrils of shame clutched at them, however they turned, all the dirty words they knew commented on all they did.

There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

Nous n'y connaissons pas encore de remède au mal que produit une phrase.

Living like that utterly convinced me of the extreme limitations of language. I was just a child then, so I had only an intuitive understanding of the degree to which one losses control of words once they are spoken or written. It was then that I first felt a deep curiosity about language, and understood it as a tool that encompasses both a single moment and eternity.

Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.

I wished I could take those words back. Gather them up like butterflies in a net.

I will only mention that the independent power of words to affect the writing of history is a thing to be watched out for. They have an almost frightening autonomous power to produce in the mind of the reader an image or idea that was not in the mind of the writer. Obviously they operate this way in all forms of writing, but history is particularly sensitive because one has a duty to be accurate, and careless use of words can leave a false impression one had not intended.

In writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense.

He was the most persuasive speaker, less for his words than character behind them. He made every listener feel he had done his best to master every aspect of this question, who has been driven by logic to arrive at certain conclusions, and who is disguising from us no argument on either side.

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence.

First of all, simply clawing or breathing at somedragon once isn't real fighting. Small people usually use words for what we mean by that. They might say, oh, "Your mother copulated extramaritally with a black poodle, and from this union you were born." Dragons just attack, once, instead. It's just as expressive.

There's a couple of reasons why I write poetry more than anything else. I have written a few, what could be called short stories, something longer than flash fiction, but after about 6 pages I found that I'm desperate to figure out how to get out of what I've created. Using that many words overwhelms me and I feel like I'm drowning.

Though I do keep lists of words that catch my attention for a variety of reasons, they rarely make it into poems, not infrequently because I lose the lists.

Your words hurt, Jazz. They hurt like cotton balls thrown in my direction.

Nature is a temple where living pillars Sometimes emit confused words; There man passes through the forests of symbols Which observe him with familiar looks.

It is time to take a stand for the future. Not in just words but actions. It is time to step up and demand the Vision. For by its realization, we all will win, and I mean us all.

People need to realize bullying has just as much of an impact online because words are so cutting and difficult to deal with.

Paris is life-enhancing for all those reasons we know and all those words that have become so banal.

Dictionaries are always fun, but not always reassuring.

Break up the printing presses and you break up rebellion.

The important thing is that I control my reaction, my behavior, my attitude and my words. What I receive back is not in my control.

Bizarrely, our English word 'sturdy' may go back to the Latin turdus, thrush. Anyone described as 'sturdy' in the 1200s was wilfully reckless and possibly as immovable as a sozzled bird.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

My family was always playing with words. It is little wonder that even after I got serious about writing, I've had a hard time getting serious about words.