Quotes About Words

ETYMOLOGY: "Panic" relates to the god Pan; but we can play on etymologies as on words (as has always been done) and pretend to believe that "panic" comes from the Greek adjective that means "everything.

Language is a skin : I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

In the felicitous words of one early Burr biographer, "The Clintons had power, the Livingstons had numbers, and the Schuylers had Hamilton.

that the retaliation would also be highly personal. That Hamilton could be so sensitive to criticisms of himself and so insensitive to the effect his words had on others was a central mystery of his psyche.

the incident confirmed his innate pessimism.

WHEN I WAS VERY YOUNG, Papa used to tell me that words fly on wild winds from the mouths of sly people. When the winds pick up, he said, sand blows into your ears and bites your eyes. Storms build overhead like a lake with a spout, but you can't see or hear. Only when you are safely sheltered, Papa said, can you tell which way the wind is blowing. Only from the calm, he said, can you see how to protect yourself from trouble.

thousand words of fiction a month. He was writing

Cemetery than the White House was east.

sentences. A succinct and everyday exchange of information.

already rubbed greasy where sleeves

Simply to line up words one after another upon a page is to create some order where it did not exist, to give a recognizable shape to the chaos of our lives. Writing cannot bring our loved ones back, but it can sometimes fix them in our fleeting memories as they were in life, and it can always help us make it through the night.

He was correct about the language, though. Within weeks certain prodigal words started filtering home. They came one at a time or in shy small groups. I remember when sea-kindly showed up, a sentimental favorite, followed by desiccated and massive. Brusque appeared all by itself, which seemed apt; merry and boisterous arrived together. This would be a good time to ask for your patience if I use an adjective too many now and again—even now, some years on, they're still returning.

Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.

A lot was spoken but nothing was said.

while your unconscious mind is working feverishly to do all those things, you can relax in bed, recognizing, seemingly without effort, the lighting fixture on the ceiling—or the words in this book.

How many Nicodemites are there in every corner of Christianity whose versitis has caused them to be more committed to words than to the Word Made Flesh? How many have made a religion of words and lost sight of God's Image-Made-Story?

The human bird shall take his first flight,filling the words with amazement,all writings with his fame,and bringing eternal glory to those whose nest whence he sprang.

But thought they were nice grand words to say...

I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch— I said it in German and Greek; But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!

I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book.

Alice thought to herself, 'Then there's no use in speaking.' The voices didn't join in this time, as she hadn't spoken, but to her great surprise, they all thought in chorus (I hope you understand what thinking in chorus means--for I must confess that I don't), 'Better say nothing at all. Language is worth a thousand pounds a word!

For instance, take the two words fuming and furious. Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards fuming, you will say fuming-furious; if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards furious, you will say furious-fuming; but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say frumious.

It's too late to correct it," said the Red Queen: "when you've once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences.

either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.) Presently she began again. 'I wonder if I shall fall right through