Quotes about wording
page 19

“The spoken word is nothing. It hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal. - Balbulus”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkspell

“In plain words, Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.”

Henry Adams book The Education of Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Source: The Education of Henry Adams

Law, Dreams, Nature

“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

“Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it, or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.”

Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities

Source: Invisible Cities

Memory

“He nodded and curled over his paper, writing quickly. As his words took form on the white page, she got to watch him… and realized she never wanted him to go. She wanted him here beside her forever.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

“Words are tricky. Sometimes you need them to bring out the hurt festering inside. If you don't, it turns gangrenous and kills you…. But sometimes words can break a feeling into pieces.”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: Queen of Dreams

Feeling, Hurt

“that's it - hundreds of texts and conversations, thousands upon thousands of words spoken and sent, all boiled down into a single line. is that what relationships become?”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

People

“We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.”

John Fowles book The French Lieutenant's Woman

Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman

“My father always said that too many words cheapened the value of a man's speech.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: Raven's Shadow

“That's what I told myself five hundred times: impossibility. I can tell you this much: the word is a great big log thrown on the fires of love. ~Page 133.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Love, Time

“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Change, Perfection

“When you know you love someone, when you know it's finally the right time, you don't just wait around for the right words, you just say the sentences even if they're all mixed up and imperfect.”

Patti Callahan Henry American writer

Source: Coming Up for Air

Love, Time, Waiting

“Inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Thinking

“How weightless
words are when nothing will do.”

Philip Levine (1928–2015) Poet

Source: Breath

“Once a person knows a kiss and a kind word, you can't blame him for never wanting to live without them again.”

Robert James Waller (1939–2017) American writer

Kiss, Personality

“… sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.”

Emma Donoghue (1969) Irish novelist, playwright, short-story writer and historian

Source: Landing

“COWBOYS, just like the word says.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

“This is the music business. 'Five years is five hundred years' - your words.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Music, Business

“Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.”

Orson Scott Card book Shadow of the Giant

Source: Shadow of the Giant

Truth, Thinking

“One is what one is, and the dishonesty of hiding behind a degree, or a title, or any manner and collection of words, is still exactly that: dishonest.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

“Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land and Other Poems

Hope, Despair

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Boy

“Intoxicated? The word did not express it by a mile. He was oiled, boiled, fried, plastered, whiffled, sozzled, and blotto.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Source: Meet Mr. Mulliner

“Living Memory
I carry you with me into the world,
into the smell of rain
& the words that dance between people
& for me, it will always be this way,
walking in the light,
remembering being alive together”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

People, World, Way, Light

“But, reader, there is no comfort in the word "farewell," even if you say it in French. "Farewell" is a word that, in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

Goodbye

“Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“Men don't rape women because their women are ugly," cousin Jostien said, but there was a protest at his words.

"That's what my fa said! He says that inside their hearts and spirits they are nothing but little men who need to feel powerful.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Women, Men, Feeling, Heart

“Sorry I painted the word 'twat' on your garage door.”

David Shrigley (1968) British artist

Painting

“There’s more to honesty than … than an arrangement of words. They say faeries can’t lie, but you lie in your intentions, your attitude, your demeanor”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Lie

“Have your dream… What you need now more than anything is discipline. Cast off mere words. Words turn into stone. (from Thailand)”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

Dreams

“What good are laws that cannot be read or understood, or a tongue that spews only hatred or ignorance? What good is the written word to an illiterate man?”

Delores Phillips (1950–2014) American writer

Source: The Darkest Child

Law, Reading

“The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.”

Pat Conroy book The Prince of Tides

Source: The Prince of Tides

“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

World

“The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Soul, Memory, Heart

“Keller couldn't form any words for a moment. Then she said, "Galen? When you choose a form, choose something gentle."

I thought you thought everybody had to be a fighter." He said.

Some people shouldnt have to be.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Witchlight

People

“All words, in every language, are metaphors.”

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

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 120

“One should use common words to say uncommon things”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“I listened as the words became sentences and the sentences became pages and the pages became feelings and voices and places and people.”

Jennifer Donnelly A Northern Light

Source: A Northern Light

People, Feeling

“If the feeling is there, you might as
well admit it. Saying the words, or not saying
them, doesn't change a damn thing”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Feeling, Change

“… and when he put his mind to it, he could make his words coil themselves around and around the listener until they held her in some sort of a mild hypnotic spell.”

Roald Dahl book Switch Bitch

Source: Switch Bitch

“A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Letter to Louis Untermeyer (1 January 1916)
1910s

Sense, Effort

“I look for the words, Professor. I look for the words because I believe that the words is the way to your heart.”

Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited

Source: The Sunset Limited

Way, Heart

“but it's not safe and I can feel him slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me."
As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back but I don't catch it.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Feeling, Sleep

“All that was required to measure the planet was a man with a stick and a brain. In other words, couple an intellect with some experimental apparatus and almost anything seems achievable.”

Simon Singh (1964) British author

Source: Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe

“Words are easy; lies as simple as parting your lips and breathing.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Parting

“The years go by, and I've told the story so many times that I'm not sure anymore whether I actually remember it or whether I just remember the words I tell it with.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Source: The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory

Time

“I find I very rarely live up to my words. And since you know me primarily through my words, there are oh so many ways I can disappoint.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Disappointment, Way

“Don't you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don't even have to be true!”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Thinking

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

LOVE (1972)
Variant: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Life, Smile, Wise, Relationship

“Words are easy to say, but emotions betray the best intentions.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

“He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing.”

Kent Haruf book Eventide

Source: Eventide

Thinking, Change

“He loved constantly, instantly, spontaneously, without thought or words. That's what he taught me. Love is not something you think about, it is a state in which you dwell. That was his gift.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Love, Thinking

“No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”

Tom Schulman (1950) American film director, screenwriter

Variant: No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world
Source: Dead Poets Society

World, Idea, Change, Business

“Words have consequences.”

Albert Marrin (1936) American historian

“Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us."
Roark: "But I don't think of you.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Thinking

“I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Way

“Listen up. You're in trouble. Word is the Capitol's furious about you showing them up in the arena. The one thing they can't stand is being laughed at and they're the joke of Panem”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“It’s the final word in camouflage. Forget chucking weights around. Peeta should have gone into his private session with the Gamemakers and painted himself into a tree. Or a boulder. Or a muddy bank full of weeds.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Tree, Painting, Forgetting

“Then I went to bed and cried into my pillow. I wasn't sad, not at all. It was just so beautiful to have an intense feeling and the right words at the same time.

What are we but our stories?”

James Patterson book Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Source: Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Sadness, Beauty, Feeling, Time

“But didn't you say you were satisfied with your life?"

"Word games," I dismissed. "Every army needs a flag.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Life, Game

“In truth, the degree of anyone's success depends on how often they can say the word yes and hear the word no.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Tell-All

Source: Tell-All

Truth, Success, Dependency

“It's fascinating. You know all these words, and they’re all English, but when you string them together into sentences, they just don’t make any sense.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Variant: It’s fascinating. You know all these words, and they’re all English, but when you string them together into sentences, they just don’t make any sense.
Source: City of Fallen Angels

Sense

“He smiled, and suddenly she knew that his words were true. Everything would be all right. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Tragedy couldn't coexist in a world with one of Colin's smiles.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

World, Smile

“We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Letter to John Adams (1774)

“We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect.”

Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan

Source: Titus Groan

Truth

“and then Zach said a really bad word, but I doubt DeeDee noticed because it was in Farsi”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

“And the worst thing she had heard were the words he hadn't said, the fact that he hadn't loved her.”

Danielle Steel book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

Love

“I have walked a stair of swords,
I have worn a coat of scars.
I have vowed with hollow words,
I have lied my way to the stars
-Songs of Sapphique”

Catherine Fisher book Incarceron

Source: Incarceron

Way, Star

“Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”

Philip Larkin book High Windows

Source: High Windows

Sun

“Why do you always have to be right. Why do you always have to have the last word. For once in your life just let it go.”

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

Life

“No man can adequately reach and explain a single word of God with all his words”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

God

“I feel a little dizzy," said Orion. "But also wonderfully elated. I feel that I am on the verge of finding a rhyme for the word."

"Oxygen deprivation," said Foaly. "Or maybe it's just him.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

Feeling

“She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.”

Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher

“Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating… but there are other ways to understanding.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Way, Understanding, Drawing

“When she came to write her story, she would wonder when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Books

“Most people believe me when I lie. I've learned how to say the words just right. I have a trusting kind of face. But the boy in front of me was a trained operative, so Zach knew better. And besides, Zach new me.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

People, Lie, Boy, Learning

“Philosophy? What good is that?” Isn’t it the art of saying nothing with as many words as possible?”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Art

“Finally someone takes me seriously enough to ask for my word of honor, and it’s a villain.”

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

Source: Remalna's Children (Crown & Court 2.5, 2011)

“Rose,” he said, forcibly trying to keep a serious tone, “I can think of many words to describe you, sexy and hot being at the top of the list. You know what’s not on the list? Sane.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Thinking

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"Proclamation 3560 — Thanksgiving Day, 1963" (5 November 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9511 1963 Context: Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers — for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

Forgetting, Gratitude, Inspirational, Positive

“So now what? What happens when words fail us?”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

“If men should read these words, let them know that power is a heavy burden. Seek not to be bound by its chains.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Men, Reading

“A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Personality

“As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs… The way I write is who I am, or have become…”

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

Way, Sense

“The final word is love.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Love

“If,' Roland said. 'An old teacher of mine used to call it the only word a thousand letters long.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: Wolves of the Calla

Teachers

“When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Reading

“And he understands. He understands why people hold hands: he’d always thought it was about possessiveness, saying This is mine. But it’s about maintaining contact. It is about speaking without words. It is about I want you with me and don’t go.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

People, Understanding

“He was a writer and words were his weapons.”

Christopher Moore book Bloodsucking Fiends

Source: Bloodsucking Fiends

“Her lips on his could tell him better than all her stumbling words.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

“I like words. And I always learn a few new ones when Father gets angry. I shouldn't neglect my education, now should I?”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

Education, Learning

“Digestion of words as well; I often read aloud to myself in my writing corner in the library, where no one can hear me, for the sake of better savouring the text, so as to make it all the more mine.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Reading

“Words are such uncertain things, they so often sound well but mean the opposite of what one thinks they do.”

Agatha Christie book Partners in Crime

Source: Partners in Crime

Thinking

“A word is a lot.”

Etgar Keret (1967) Israeli and polish writer and screenwriter

“You don't have to be 'adults'… but be someone who can take responsibility for their own words and actions. Believe it or not, that's actually harder.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 8

“At last he came to a door, with these words in glowing emeralds:

THE END OF THE WORLD

He did not hesitate. He opened the door and stepped through.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

World

“Words don't hurt you." Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

Pain, Children, World, Hurt

“All human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and hope!”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Also: Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,— "Wait and hope". Chapter 117 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_117 Variant: All human wisdom is contained in these two words - Wait and Hope Source: The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)

Wisdom, Hope, Waiting, Wise

Quotes about wording page 19

Quotes about wording
page 19