quotations about words
He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Avoid, which many grave men have not done, words taken from sacred subjects and from elevated poetry: these we have seen vilely prostituted. Avoid too the society of the barbarians who misemploy them.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
"Barrow and Newton", Dialogues of Literary Men
By words the mind is winged.
ARISTOPHANES
The Birds
I was struck by the way in which meanings are historically attached to words: it is so accidental, so remote, so twisted. A word is like a schoolgirl's room--a complete mess--so the great thing is to make out a way of seeing it all as ordered, as right, as inferred and following.
WILLIAM H. GASS
The Paris Review, summer 1977
Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.
DAN SIMMONS
Olympos
The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
Words have not the color of the rose
Nor the beauty of the morn!
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Depths of Love"
Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Conversations with God
Fair words never hurt the tongue.
GEORGE CHAPMAN
Eastward Ho
Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
DEPECHE MODE
"Enjoy the Silence"
No man weighs his words who has but a moment to live.
PHILIP MOELLER
Helena's Husband
Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
MARK TWAIN
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
Harper's Magazine, November 2010
My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets -- no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!
PHILIP ROTH
Portnoy's Complaint
As long as words a different sense will bear,
And each may be his own interpreter,
Our airy faith will no foundation find;
The word's a weathercock for every wind.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Hind and the Panther
All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
My method is to find a word with a gesture.
CHRISTIAN MORGENSTERN
An Evolution in Aphorisms
A word in earnest is as good as a speech.
CHARLES DICKENS
Bleak House
There have been countless nights now that I have sat at my computer staring at a blank screen, in hopes I could find some words to describe the feelings and thoughts that have been going through my head. Countless nights where I lay awake disappointed with the fact another night went by, and still I was stuck with nothing. I never really understood why kids in my classes over the years hated writing papers, but now I understand more than ever. Not being able to find the right words to describe the thoughts going through you head absolutely sucks.
SAM WAKITSCH
"I write because to me, words are beautiful", Chicago Now, January 25, 2016
Words are never "only words"; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do.
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
First as Tragedy, Then as Farce