Quotes About Words

Look, words are like the air: they belong to everybody. Words are not the problem; it's the tone, the context, where those words are aimed, and in whose company they are uttered. Of course murderers and victims use the same words, but I never read the words utopia, or beauty, or tenderness in police descriptions. Do you know that the Argentinean dictatorship burnt The Little Prince ? And I think they were right to do so, not because I do not love The Little Prince , but because the book is so full of tenderness that it would harm any dictatorship.

There are words bandied about that are being misused - words like 'socialism,' words like 'communism,' words like 'fascism.

Reggae is a message of consolation; a message of salvation. The youth are going to the school and they have to listen to the words. The parents have to listen to the words. God has to listen to the words. So, we have to make it positive. If you sing nursery rhymes, it is nothing. You just blow up tomorrow, and the record dies at the same time. But if you give positive words, that song lives forever.

On matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. If names are not right, words are misused. When words are misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a gentleman must be ready to put names in speech, to put words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words.

Words are delicate instruments: How to use them so that, after having read the poem, the taste remaining is not of the words themselves, but of a thought, a situation, a parallel reality? If not used appropriately, words in poetry are like the ugly remains of food after eating. What I mean is that readers will reject words if they don't serve to shift attention from themselves to somewhere else.

But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them." Viola: "Thy reason, man?" Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.

Magic is a kind of energy. It is given shape by human thoughts and emotions, by imagination. Thoughts define that shape—and words help to define those thoughts. That’s why wizards usually use words to help them with their spells. Words provide a sort of insulation as the energy of magic burns through a spell caster’s mind.

It was as if he had come to mistrust words somehow. Words, and the sentiments words carried.

In the theatre, words are eighty to eighty-five percent of the importance of what is happening to you for your comprehension. In film, words are about twenty percent. It's a different figure, but it's almost an opposite ratio. For the words are only a little bit of embroidery, a little bit of lacework.

It's no coincidence that good words make us feel good and that hurtful or angry words make us feel bad. There is a 100 percent correlation between the words we choose and how we feel.

Indeed our words will remain lifeless, barren, devoid of any passion, until we die as a result of these words, whereupon our words will suddenly spring to life and live amongst the hearts that are dead, bringing them to life as well.

Telling the complete story of VeggieTales would require much more time than we have before us tonight. Since this is Yale, I decided to craft a shorter version of the story, using very large words. Remembering though that I was kicked out of Bible College before I'd had a chance to learn many very large words, I concluded that my only remaining option was to tell the story simply, using simple words, and chance the consequences.

When someone isn’t smart enough to express their frustration, they use dirty words. Those are words that describe a lack of intelligence. Smart people don’t use those kind of dirty words, because they find it an insult to their intelligence.

It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts; but until this has occurred, words do not count.

What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.

People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolour left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response.

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.

A lot of people think they can write poetry, and many do, because they can figure out how to line up the words or make certain sounds rhyme or just imitate the other poets they've read. But this boy, he's the real poet, because when he tries to put on paper what he's seen with his heart, he will believe deep down that there are no good words for it, no words can do it, and at that moment he will have begun to write poetry.

Some professional writers write everyday no matter what and perhaps that's the way it should be done, but it's not the way I do it. If I'm not pregnant with words and I'm not in labor with them, I don't even try to bring them forth because they won't be any good anyway. Once I'm ready to deliver, it's like being pregnant. I've got to find a typewriter or a piece of paper. The only words that have ever had any possible value to others seem to have been those words that just had to come out.

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use measured language lie's The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotic's, numbing pain In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold But large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.

Certainly, words can be as abusive as any blow. . . . When a three-year-old yells, "You're so stupid! What a dummy!" it doesn't carry the same weight as when a mother yells those words to a child. . . . Even if you don't physically abuse young children, you can still drive them nuts with your words.

I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases.

Each time I write, each time the authentic words break through, I am changed. The older order that I was collapses and dies. I lose control. I do not know exactly what words will appear on the page. I follow language. I follow the sound of the words, and I am surprised and transformed by what I record.

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.

She'd always known he loved her, it had been the one certainty above all others that had never changed, but she had never said the words aloud and she had never meant them quite this way before. She had said it to him, and she hardly knew what she had meant. They were terrifying words, words to encompass a world.

Unfortunately, I have dedicated great effort to the task of compiling this ‘sensitive words glossary,’ and I have mastered my filtering skills. I knew which words and sentences had to be cut, and I accepted the cutting as if that was the way it should be. In fact, I will often take it on myself to save time and cut a few words. I call this ‘castrated writing’ - I am a proactive eunuch, I have already castrated myself before the surgeon raises his scalpel.

Things are going so well. We’re volleying words back and forth. Everything she says, I have something I can say back. We’re sparking, and part of me just wants to sit back and watch. We’re clicking. Not because a part of me is fitting into a part of her. But because our words are clicking into each other to form sentences and our sentences are clicking into each other to form dialogue and our dialogue is clicking together to form this scene from this ongoing movie that’s as comfortable as it is unrehearsed.

I have this theory about words. There's a thousand ways to say "Pass the salt". It could mean, you know, "Can I have some salt?" or it could mean, "I love you.". It could mean, "I'm very annoyed with you". Really, the list could go on and on. Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.

There is nothing that can be said by mathematical symbols and relations which cannot also be said by words. The converse, however, is false. Much that can be and is said by words cannot successfully be put into equations, because it is nonsense.

Own your words. Your words are the maps to your intentions.

I usually start with the words. The rhythm of the words gives me the rhythm of the song, and then I look for the musical highlights in it to carry it.

A novel, for me, relies on my imagination to inspire your (the reader's) imagination. It is not all there for you. My novels or my stories come to me visually. I use words to translate the novel I see inside my head into words that I hope will create a movie inside your head.

Magic is another word that makes people uneasy, so I use it deliberately, because words they are comfortable with, the words that sound acceptable, rational, scientific, and intellectually sound, are comfortable precisely because they are the language of estrangement.

I was a book lover from the beginning. I loved, love, words and images and ideas, the ways a book can make you feel things deeply or help you understand something you never even knew there were words for.

Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades - words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.

The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati...when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot.

You're able to use a search engine, like Google or Bing or whatever. But those engines don't understand anything about pages that they give you; they essentially index the pages based on the words that you're searching, and then they intersect that with the words in your query, and they use some tricks to figure out which pages are more important than others. But they don't understand anything.

Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

Now let us bandy words no more... nothing is easier than sharp words, except to wish them unspoken.

It's Richard Kelly's brilliance, because he led me to Donnie Darko performance. He wanted sincerity, he didn't want it to be one color, and he made me go vulnerable, and I think that's why it works. When you can get all those different colors and levels in one line. Time Out New York voted it "Best Line Of The Year" - which is crazy, because how many words is it? "Sometimes. I. Doubt. Your. Commitment. To. Sparkle. Motion." Eight words. It's crazy.

A recent government publication on the marketing of cabbage contains, according to one report, 26,941 words. It is noteworthy in this regard that the Gettysburg Address contains a mere 279 words while the Lord's Prayer comprises but 67.

Rem tene, verba sequentur: grasp the subject, and the words will follow. This, I believe, is the opposite of what happens with poetry, which is more a case of verba tene, res sequenter: grasp the words, and the subject will follow.

For me personally, I don't pray using words - it is just with my intent. Why do I need to pray with "words," to something external, when I know what I want?

The brand is lying about something, or at least misrepresenting it. When I read a bottle of shampoo or moisturizer or other beauty product, I always perceive a dark subtext. The words haunt me. It comes across as humorous to the reader/audience, but in fact the words really do make me a little bit queasy. Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think - no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There's an inherent irony.

That which I have set out in Latin is not my words but the words of God and of apostles and prophets, who of course have never lied. He who believes shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be damned. God has spoken.

[from The One and Only Official Mr. Gum Official Glossary That Tells You What Words Mean by Explaining Them Using Other Words] : Launderette: This is where you go to wash your clothes. You put the money into the slot and then you chuck your clothes into the washing machine and about six hours and twenty-five dollars later all your clothes have shrunk and turned pink. Fantastic value

Right now, in this moment, your soul has again created opportunity for you to be, do, and have what it takes to know Who You Really Are. Your soul has brought you to the words you are reading right now-as it has brought you to words of wisdom and truth before. What will you do now? What will you choose to be? Your soul waits, and watches with interest, as it has many times before.

How long has it been since you looked into the eyes of your mother and, holding nothing back, spoke those welcome words, 'Mother, I truly love you'? How about Father, who daily toils to provide for you? Fathers appreciate hearing those same precious words from the lips of a child, 'I love you.'