Quotes About Words

It is a sin to think words no others think

He had to say; words were a lens to focus one's mind, and he could not use words for anything else tonight.

She found a deep sense of fitness in the fact that here, among people, they should be strangers; strangers and enemies. She thought, these people can think of many things he and I are to each other--except what we are. It made the moments she remembered greater, the moments not touched by the sight of others, by the words of others, not even by their knowledge.

He thought--while his hand moved rapidly--what a power there was in words; later, for those who heard them, but first for the one who found them; a healing power, a solution, like the breaking of a barrier.

When I die, I hope to go to heaven-- whatever the hell that is-- and I want to be able to afford the price of admission, Virtue is the price of admission. Jim said haughtily. That's what I mean, James. So I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all-- that I was a man who made money. Any grafter can make money. James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning.

Words are a lens to focus one's mind.

it was not a silence of resentment; it was the silence of an understanding too delicate to limit by words.

Inside a book, she captures all that's lost. She journals so her words won't fly away.

She soon learned, though, that giving weight to other people's opinions was creative nihilism; it was like being banished from the Land of No Words and exiled to the Land of All Bullshit.

A] person is formed from a continuum of words and actions over time and cannot be reduced to a fixed "self" that is either "enlightened" or "unenlightened.

So what's the point of using words nobody else knows or can say comfortably? I just don't understand that.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always hurt me.

If a thing can be said in ten words, I may be relied upon to take a hundred to say it. I ought to apologize for that. I ought to prune, pare and extirpate excess growth, but I will not. I like words—strike that, I love words—and while I am fond of the condensed and economical use of them in poetry, in song lyrics, in Twitter, in good journalism and smart advertising, I love the luxuriant profusion and mad scatter of them too.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will always hurt me. Bones mend and become actually stronger in the very place they were broken and where they have knitted up; mental wounds can grind and ooze for decades and be re-opened by the quietest whisper.

Literature is the only access to truth we have on this planet.

The English language is an arsenal of weapons; if you are going to brandish them without checking to see whether or no they are loaded you must expect to have them explode in your face from time to time. Poppycock means soft shit - from the Dutch, I need scarcely remind you, pappe kak.

Matter is the ground of all existence; mind, spirit, and God as well, are just words that express the wondrous results of neuronal complexity.

There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.

If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.

Speech destroys the function of love, I think-that's a hell of a thing for a writer to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of its tail. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words can close those love bites. it's the other way around, that's the joke. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them.

Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford, Jack?

If you've every been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.

There are also books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words - the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers that won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.

Let the word and the legend go before you. There are those who will carry both. Fools, perchance. Let the word go before you. Let your shadow grow. Let it grow hair on its face. Let it become dark. Given time, words may even enchant an enchanter.