quotations about words
It's tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you're not quite there and you're redoing it and redoing it and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard.
ELIZABETH STROUT
Newsweek, July 13, 2009
Just pick words and put one of them after the other like a baby learning to walk, like a drunk carefully crossing the street.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Death with Interruptions
The way that words mutate reminds me of fashions in music. The word--the note--is a constant. But the setting and chord in which it occurs alters with the mood of a nation from major to minor, from the assertive to the mournful and foreboding.
NEAL ASCHERSON
"Chords of Identity in a Minor Key", Games with Shadows
Today it is even more important to acknowledge that words should matter and are very important. That importance, however, stems from them being the only game in town. That is, they are, for most of us, the only tool we have to communicate. While this is true I must also say that today no one should worship words, because on close inspection they do not hold up to scrutiny.
DAVID BUCIENSKI
"How much do words really matter?", Southgate News Herald, March 9, 2017
What so wild as words are?
ROBERT BROWNING
A Woman's Last Word
Whether they are growls of anger, the laughter of happiness or cries of sadness, humans pay more attention when an emotion is expressed through vocalisations than we do when the same emotion is expressed in speech. It takes just one-tenth of a second for our brains to begin to recognise emotions conveyed by vocalisations, a study said. The researchers believe that the speed with which the brain 'tags' these vocalisations and the preference given to them compared to language, is due to the potentially crucial role that decoding vocal sounds has played in human survival.
EDITOR
"We are better at detecting laughter than words", Z News, January 19, 2016
Words are not necessary to one's experience of the true life.
DON DELILLO
Point Omega
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
MARK TWAIN
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Words are sometimes signs of ideas; sometimes of the want of them.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Words are words, and there are no cross-platform kinks to work out. But when it comes to emoji characters, things get a bit trickier.
JESSAMINE MOLLI & DANIEL HUBBARD
"Lost in Translation: How texting emojis between different devices can turn disastrous", Slate, February 10, 2016
Words can only hurt you if you try to read them. Don't play their game!
BEN STILLER
Zoolander
Words have not the color of the rose
Nor the beauty of the morn!
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Depths of Love"
Words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Jargon of Authenticity
Words once sequenced into phrases were never done with but recycled themselves in perpetuity.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
Written words as well as spoken words are not always taken the way they are meant to be taken, so never hesitate to ask, "I am not sure what you mean by that?" Facial expressions and tone of voice play a large role in our understanding, but communication is the key to living in harmony with others.
ELIZABETH SCHADRACK
"Valley Voice: Common sense moves can ease societal woes", The Desert Sun, February 10, 2016
Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word.
HEINRICH BÖLL
The Paris Review, spring 1983
By words the mind is winged.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
Deeds not Words: I say so too!
And yet I find it somehow true,
A word may help a man in need,
To nobler act and braver deed.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Facta non Verba"