quotations about words
Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today -- that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
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"Words Fail Me", BBC Radio, April 29, 1937
Even when we know things, sometimes it takes words to make them concrete.
GLEN COOK
Ceremony
Words were like objects, making the idea more solid -- less a poisonous gas and more a ... cube of crystallized thought.
DAN SIMMONS
Olympos
Words are the light and sound of our existence, the heat lightning by which the night is illuminated.
DAN SIMMONS
The Rise of Endymion
The words that bore the deathless verse of Homer from bard to a group of fascinated hearers, and with whose fading sounds the poems passed beyond recall, are fixed on the printed page in a hundred tongues. They carry to a million eyes what once could reach but a hundred ears.
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER
lecture at Columbia University, March 4, 1908
Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
DEPECHE MODE
"Enjoy the Silence"
Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Notebook
I am not for imposing any sense on your words: you are at liberty to explain them as you please. Only, I beseech you, make me understand something by them.
GEORGE BERKELEY
Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
What happens to a country when a leader's words are worthless, when their promises are toothless or utterly useless?
BRIAN STELTER
"CNN Drops The Hammer On Trump And Tells America That The President's Words Are Worthless", PoliticusUSA, March 26, 2017
Not content with the million or so words they already have at their disposal, English speakers are adding new ones at the rate of around 1,000 a year. Recent dictionary debutants include blog, grok, crowdfunding, hackathon, airball, e-marketing, sudoku, twerk and Brexit.
ANDY BODLE
"How new words are born", The Guardian, February 4, 2016
I hated the words. Each one was like a big live insect in my mouth.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising
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
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
The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
My method is to find a word with a gesture.
CHRISTIAN MORGENSTERN
An Evolution in Aphorisms
You gave yourself away, word by word, every time you opened your trap to speak.
DON DELILLO
Underworld
Twas a special gift of God that speech was given to mankind; for through the Word, and not by force, wisdom governs.
MARTIN LUTHER
"Of God's Word", Table Talk
As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus
For human words are like shadows, and shadows are incapable of explaining light and between shadow and light there is the opaque body from which words are born.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ