“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.”
Essay on William Dean Howells (1906)
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Mark Twain637
American author and humorist 1835–1910Related quotes
Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author
Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age, Little, Brown & Company, New York, NY, (2002) p. 4
“That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.”
Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet
“The right words always seemed to come too late.”
Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
On being informed that Faulkner had said that Hemingway "had never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary." Pt. 1, Ch. 4
Papa Hemingway (1966)
Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States
It was, "We the people."
As quoted by the Philadelphia Daily News (21 October 2005).
Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author
(18 October 1921)
The Diaries of Franz Kafka 1910-1923 (1948)
Context: Eternal childhood. Life calls again.
It is entirely conceivable that life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summons.