quotations about words
A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
GASTON BACHELARD
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The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos
Words are acoustical signs for concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite image signs for often recurring and associated sensations, for groups of sensations. To understand one another, it is not enough that one use the same words; one also has to use the same words for the same species of inner experiences; in the end one has to have one's experiences in common.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
Words have not the color of the rose
Nor the beauty of the morn!
EDWIN CURRAN
"The Depths of Love"
The words of God are deeds.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
I am increasingly afflicted by vertigo where words mean nothing.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Notebook
Words are not necessary to one's experience of the true life.
DON DELILLO
Point Omega
Contrary to what some people have tried to imply, the meaning of a word can be, to a great extent, a subjective experience. After all, words are really just ideas. Those ideas are layered in experiences unique to each individual's perspective. That means that we may not be using our terms in the same exact manner as we might think others are. If that isn't bad enough, those unique ideas might, or might not be rooted in fact. These things should force us to reflect on the thought that perhaps even the few words we do use are not as well defined or universal as some would have us believe.
DAVID BUCIENSKI
"How much do words really matter?", Southgate News Herald, March 9, 2017
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
Last words are only words.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Suttree
Talk is never just words.
BERNARD BECKETT
Genesis
A good word costs as little as a bad one, and is worth more.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
The words we speak have such power, and we have the power to choose them wisely.
BARBARA WALSH
"Choosing our words wisely for encouragement", Deming Headlight, January 28, 2016
All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
We
Words carried weight, some more than others, and it seemed to him that once you'd arranged them into phrases they stayed that way like bricks you'd laid in a wall and went on meaning what they said no matter what happened.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
I love and reverence the Word, the bearer of the spirit, the tool and gleaming ploughshare of progress.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
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
Make friends with words. You can't give words a pat on the back, nor can you shake hands with words. But like an old friend, words can fill you with a nostalgia that's indescribably sweet.
SHUJI TERAYAMA
attributed, "VOX POPULI: Words are like friends that bring comfort and meaning to life", Vox Populi, January 27, 2016
A man does not die for words. He dies for his relation to them.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
A Place To Come To
What so wild as words are?
ROBERT BROWNING
A Woman's Last Word
First words are critical. Just ask any novelist or screenplay writer.
RICK BROWN
"The first words you need to hear", Your Houston News, January 13, 2016