“When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.”
Source: Wolf Hall
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Hilary Mantel21
British writer 1952Related quotes
“The only stupid thing about words is the spelling of them.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist
Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki
Foreword to Wikis for Dummies
“And, like some low and mournful spell,
To whisper but one word—farewell!”
Park Benjamin, Sr. (1809–1864) American journalist
A Thought on Parting.
Context: But then to part! to part when Time
Has wreathed his tireless wing with flowers,
And spread the richness of a clime
Of fairy o'er this land of ours;
When glistening leaves and shaded streams
In the soft light of Autumn lay,
And, like the music of our dreams,
The viewless breezes seemed to stray—
'T was bitter then to rend the heart
With the sad thought that we must part;
And, like some low and mournful spell,
To whisper but one word—farewell!
Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician
As quoted in LIFE magazine (July 1966), also in Ray Charles : Man and Music (1998) by Michael Lydon, p. 264 <br class="br">As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom (198 http://interview.sweetsearch.com/2010/11/ray-charles.html <br class="br">Variant: What is soul? It's like electricity — we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room.
A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner
Source: The House at Pooh Corner (1928), Chapter Five - Rabbit, speaking of Christopher Robin.