Quotes About Words

Stories,' the green-eyed Sigrid said, unperturbed, 'are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words.

September knew a number of curse words, most of which she heard the girls at school saying in the bathrooms, in hushed voices, as if the words could make things happen just by being spoken, as if they were fairy words, and had to be handled just so.

Those were all big words, to be sure, but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying.

no one says a word that has not been spoken a thousand times before, a thousand thousand times, and even the first of those was a repetition of words that came before.

When you can change something just by saying a word, that is magic.

September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying.

If you let things start claiming to mean other things, there's no limit on how many things they can mean!

These words were small and they only meant what they said, not how they felt before he said them. He nearly wept with the frustration of it.

He flipped through the biggest book imaginable, the dictionary, a book that contained and explained every word in the language, he said. The print was so small it looked like print for a mouse to read.

The word is "love," the story tells her, but she says No, that is nonsense. "Love" is a four-letter word, the story says, but Sally says, No, you are missing the point. There is no word, just words, lots and lots of them, a universe of words, galaxies of them

There were not words for what she felt, the depth of the emptiness, the breadth of the emptiness, the emptiness of the emptiness. Words could only cloak what she felt. Words were supposed to illuminate and clarify. Words were meant to communicate and and feelings from one person to another. But today words stood numb and in the way.

Copyediting is helping the words survive the misconceptions of their authors.

The words of the Greeks are born on their lips, but those of the Romans in their hearts.

Rem tene, verba sequntur (Keep to the subject, and the words will follow)

Hard to say the right thing, these days.

It wasn't a good idea to speak without putting a deal of thought into it. Words could be snares. Less of them you laid out there, less likely they could trap you up.

Once he began to speak, the sound of it was so compelling that you focused all your thoughts upon the words, and not upon the man who uttered them. It was a voice full of light and dark. Light not only as it glimmers, but also as it glares. Dark not only as it brings cold and fear, but also as it gives rest and shade.

is the only politician whose words are less than his deeds." The

The child is father to the man.' How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: 'The child is father to the man.' No; what the poet did write ran, 'The man is father to the child.' 'The child is father to the man!' How can he be? The words are wild!

Advising is easier than helping

Nothing weights lighter than a promise.

I trust, that your readers will not construe my words to mean, that I would not have gone to a 3 o'clock in the morning session, for the sake of defeating the Nebraska bill.

Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing.

Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?