Quotes About Words

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

My afternoon comp class is not persuaded. In fact, they feel ill-treated...I've read three short essays aloud, anonymously, for the purpose of inspiring discussion or, failing discussion, private misgiving. It's my hope that if the majority of these intellectually addled young folk actually hear their words aloud, if they are forced to digest not only their advice to me but the logic that led to this advice, they will, if not change their minds, at least become acquainted with doubt.

Of course. She smiled slowly. Well, I didn't need to get all dressed then, did I? She had a way, all right. The words came out like asterisks, or the dots at the end of jazzy paragraphs in books.

A sharp reproof sometimes is a precious pearl, and a sweet balm. The wounds of secure sinners will not be healed with sweet words.

The funnies call it the syndicate. The goons and hustlers call it the Outfit. You call it the organization. I hope you people have fun with your words. But I don't care if you call yourselves the Red Cross, you owe me forty-five thousand dollars and you'll pay me back whether you like it or not.

I listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them, kill them, turn back time to the moment before I had talked so that I could have another chance to save myself.

I wanted to try to build a bridge of words between me and that world outside, that world which was so distant and elusive that it seemed unreal.

My purpose was to capture a physical state or movement that carried a strong subjective impression, an accomplishment which seemed supremely worth struggling for. If I could fasten the mind of the reader upon words so firmly that he would forget words and be conscious only of his response, I felt that I would be in sight of knowing how to write narrative.

In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words: from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.

Once the others were below, Hazel and Leo faced each other awkwardly. They were alone except for Coach Hedge, who was back on the quarterdeck singing the Pokémon theme song. The coach had changed the words to: Gotta Kill 'Em All , and Leo really didn't want to know why.

Three words. A promise of hope. The words tingled in Will's ear. They ignited his heart. 'I love you.

You have a humming dodo bird, I said stupidly.

Three words. A promise of hope. The words tingled in Will's ear. They ignited his heart. 'I love you.' And they fell.

sequiturs. 'That's got nothing to do with it,' Teddy

who is to say which of these is real and which a fiction? In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.

No multitude of words could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire.

And so he was reading the story as if it were a spell and the words of it, spoken aloud, could make magic happen.

All words at all times, true or false, whispered or shouted, are clues to the workings of the human heart.

The words were good words, Ulysses felt, maybe even great words, but the list was very incomplete. He was just getting started. The words needed to be arranged, fussed with, put in the order of his heart.

She said the words, and then she had a strange moment of seeing them, hanging there over her head. You're going to vacuum up that squirrel! There is just no predicting what kind of sentences you might say, thought Flora. For instance, who would ever think you would shout, You're going to vacuum up that squirrel!?

There are twenty-six letters in all. You will learn each of them, and once you know them, you can mix them as you will, and then use them to form the words of the world and the things of the world. You can write of everything-what is and what was and what might yet be.

Perfidy. Pea. Perfidy. Pea. These were the words that pinwheeled through Despereaux's mind as his body descended into the darkness. DESPEREAUX

She liked the way the words sounded. She imagined them floating above her in a comic-strip bubble

Words flooded like the storm's surge in a wild burst of anger that took me utterly by surprise.