Quotes about spelling

A collection of quotes on the topic of spell, spelling, word, wording.

Quotes about spelling

Jacques-Yves Cousteau photo

“The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …
A.A. Milne photo

“Pooh, how do you spell love?' 'You don't spell love Piglet, you feel it”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Variant: How do you spell love?
You don't spell it, you feel it.

Terry Pratchett photo
MF Doom photo

“Just remember all caps when you spell the man name”

MF Doom (1971) hip hop artist from America

As Madvillain, "ALL CAPS", Madvillainy (2004)
Sourced Lines

Suleiman photo
Victor Hugo photo
Omar Khayyám photo
George Carlin photo

“Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Source: George Carlin Reads to You: An Audio Collection Including Recent Grammy Winners Braindroppings and Napalm & Silly Putty

Anna Pavlova photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Tennessee Williams photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“I believe in God, only I spell it "Nature."”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

As quoted in Quote magazine (14 August 1966)
Source: Truth Against the World: Frank Lloyd Wright Speaks for an Organic Architecture

Mark Twain photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Claude Monet photo
Mark Twain photo
Banda Singh Bahadur photo
Mark Twain photo

“For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Actual source: A letter to The Economist (16 January 1971), written by one M.J. Shields (or M.J. Yilz, by the end of the letter). The letter is quoted in full in one of Willard Espy's Words at Play books. This was a modified version of a piece "Meihem in ce Klasrum", published in the September 1946 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j31/satires.php
Misattributed

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Suman Pokhrel photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
Darius Milhaud photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Françoise Sagan photo
Ozzy Osbourne photo

“Howling in the shadows,
living in a lunar spell,
he finds his heaven,
spewing from the mouth of hell.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

Bark at the Moon, written by Ozzy Osbourne
Song lyrics, Bark at the Moon (1983)

Omar Khayyám photo

“Allah, perchance, the secret word might spell;
If Allah be, He keeps His secret well;
  What He hath hidden, who shall hope to find?
Shall God His secret to a maggot tell?

The Koran! well, come put me to the test—
Lovely old book in hideous error drest—
  Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
The unbeliever knows his Koran best.

And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
  God gave the secret, and denied it me?—
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.”

Omar Khayyám, Rubaiyat (1048–1123), translation by Richard Le Gallienne
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too. note: Not a literal translation of Omar Khayyám's work, but a paraphrase according to Richard Le Gallienne own understanding.
Source: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/525669afe4b0b689af6075bc/t/525e8a8ee4b0f0a0fb6fa309/1381927566101/Talib+--+Le+Gallienne%27s+Paraphrase+and+the+Limits+of+Translation+from+FitzGerald+Rubaiyat+volume.pdf pp. 175-176


https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/fitzgeralds-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam/le-galliennes-paraphrase-and-the-limits-of-translation/CC05D35479CE33C2E66ABA8CF51F779B Le Gallienne's Paraphrase and the Limits of Translation']' by Adam Talib

Mark Twain photo
Mark Twain photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
Mark Twain photo

“I don't give a damn for a man who can only spell a word one way.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Unsourced in POP!: Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything (2006) by Sam Horn.
Disputed

Ken Thompson photo

“Ken Thompson was once asked what he would do differently if he were redesigning the UNIX system. His reply: "I'd spell creat with an e."”

Ken Thompson (1943) American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system

[The UNIX programming environment, Kernighan, Brian W., Brian Kernighan, Pike, Rob, w:Rob Pike, Prentice-Hall, 1984, 10269821, 0139376992], p. 204 http://books.google.com/books?id=poFQAAAAMAAJ&q=%22spell+creat+with+an+e%22&dq=%22spell+creat+with+an+e%22.

Ralph Nader photo
Andrew Jackson photo

“It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Sometimes reported as having been a retort to statements of his political rival, John Quincy Adams, who had boycotted Harvard University's awarding of a Doctorate of Laws degree to Jackson in 1833, declaring "I would not be present to witness her [Harvard's] disgrace in conferring her highest literary honors on a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and could hardly spell his own name." Quoted in News Reporting and Writing 4th edition (1987) by M. Mencher.
Unsourced variant: Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word.
Likely misattributed http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/25/spelling/

Lewis Carroll photo
George Washington photo
Henry Fonda photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Print altered not only the spelling and grammar but the accentuation and inflection of languages, and made “bad grammar” possible.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1960s, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), p. 263

José Saramago photo

“I was reading even before I could spell properly, even though I couldn't necessarily understand what I was reading. Being able to identify a word I knew was like finding a signpost on the road telling me I was on the right path, heading in the right direction. And so it was, in this rather unusual way, Diário by Diário, month by month, pretending not to hear the jokey comments made by the adults in the house, who were amused by the way I would stare at the newspaper as if at a wall, that my moment to astonish them finally came, when, one day, nervous but triumphant, I read out loud, in one go, without hesitation, several consecutive lines of print.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Mal sabendo ainda soletrar, já lia, sem perceber que estava lendo. Identificar na escrita do jornal uma palavra que eu conhecesse era como encontrar um marco na estrada a dizer-me que ia bem, que seguia na boa direcção. E foi assim, desta maneira algo invulgar, Diário após Diário, mês após mês, fazendo de conta que não ouvia as piadas dos adultos da casa, que se divertiam por estar eu a olhar para o jornal como se fosse um muro, que a minha hora de os deixar sem fala chegou, quando, um dia, de um fôlego, li em voz alta, sem titubear, nervoso mas triunfante, umas quantas linhas seguidas.
Source: Small Memories (2006), pp. 87–88

Aleister Crowley photo
Eugene O'Neill photo
Joachim von Ribbentrop photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“He asked my religion and I replied 'agnostic'. He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1960s, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)
Context: He asked my religion and I replied 'agnostic'. He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God. This remark kept me cheerful for about a week.

Virginia Woolf photo

“The hostess is our modern Sibyl. She is a witch who lays her guests under a spell.”

Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 4
Context: The hostess is our modern Sibyl. She is a witch who lays her guests under a spell. In this house they think themselves happy; in that witty; in a third profound. It is all an illusion (which is nothing against it, for illusions are the most valuable and necessary of all things, and she who can create one is among the world's greatest benefactors), but as it is notorious that illusions are shattered by conflict with reality, so no real happiness, no real wit, no real profundity are tolerated where the illusion prevails.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo

“The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.”

On Fairy-Stories (1939)
Context: The story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.

Dr. Seuss photo

“In the places I go there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.”

On Beyond Zebra! (1955)
Context: In the places I go there are things that I see
That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z.
I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!

Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
Adam Levine photo

“Tiffani-Amber Thiessen thought we were all on blow…. Tori Spelling hung out with us backstage and gave us the lowdown. Brian Austin Green, kept telling us about his music. Ian Ziering was kind of a dick. Maybe he was having a bad day.”

Adam Levine (1979) singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States

On being on Beverly Hills, 90210 when he was 17 in his band Kara's Flowers
Voss, Brandon (2007-05-22), "Adam Levine". Advocate. (986):25.

Martin Luther photo

“Do not fight against these harmful spells. For you do not know what God wants with them. You do not know the greater divine plan behind it all.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

As attributed by Kai Lehmann, curator of the exhibition "Luther und die Hexen" ("Luther and the witches"). (2013) in “Interview with Dr. Kai Lehmann, curator of the exhibition "Luther und die Hexen" ("Luther and the witches")“ https://www.luther2017.de/en/wiki/martin-luther-and-the-witches/kai-lehmann-martin-luther-firmly-believed-in-witches/
Disputed

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Diaper spelled backwards is repaid, think about it.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Dorothy Parker photo
Aleister Crowley photo
Roald Dahl photo
Edith Wharton photo
Agatha Christie photo
Lev Grossman photo
Rachel Caine photo
Francesca Lia Block photo
A.A. Milne photo

“Because my spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.”

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Chapter Six - Pooh.

“Don't drink too much."
"When I can spell out your name in shot glasses, I'll stop."
"I'll have to get a shorter name."
"I'll have to forget how to spell it.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Kill the Dead

Laurie Halse Anderson photo

“wats yr typ?
people who can spell”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Stephen Colbert photo
Rick Riordan photo
Jenny Han photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Dr. Seuss photo
Meg Cabot photo
Walter Benjamin photo

“It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

Source: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

“You don't spell it, son. You eat it.”

John Hughes (1950–2009)

Sixteen Candles Script

A.A. Milne photo
A.A. Milne photo
Roald Dahl photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Rachel Cohn photo
Richelle Mead photo
Kate Chopin photo
William Goldman photo
Cornelia Funke photo
Richelle Mead photo
Rick Riordan photo
Douglas Coupland photo
Deb Caletti photo
Henry James photo
Libba Bray photo