WORDS QUOTES IV

quotations about words

I believe words have power. Words can build up your self-esteem or words can puff up your pride. Words can deceive you into wrong thinking or words can guide you to safety. Words can move you to compassion. Words can even heal. Your own words can defeat you since our mental self-talk is the software directing our life.

RON WOOD

"Words are weapons", Meridian Star, January 23, 2016


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

Tags: Lewis H. Lapham


If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place.

GEORGE ELIOT

The Mill on the Floss

Tags: George Eliot


In silence you can't hide anything ... as you can in words.

AUGUST STRINDBERG

The Ghost Sonata

Tags: August Strindberg


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

Tags: Elizabeth Strout


Kind words don't wear out the tongue.

DANISH PROVERB


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


No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

HENRY ADAMS

The Education of Henry Adams

Tags: Henry Adams


No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.

ROGER ZELAZNY

Lord of Light

Tags: Roger Zelazny


One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.

JOSÉ SARAMAGO

Death with Interruptions

Tags: José Saramago


Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate...

ANNE CARSON

Nox

Tags: Anne Carson


Talk is never just words.

BERNARD BECKETT

Genesis

Tags: Bernard Beckett


There are times when people aren't able to acknowledge or interpret an action but words are definite.

ANGIE JURGENS

"The power of words, through the eyes of a writer", Journal Star, January 30, 2016


Through words we come to know the other person--and to be known. This knowing is at the heart of our deepest longings for intimacy and connection with others. How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice.

HARRIET LERNER

The Dance of Connection

Tags: Harriet Lerner


Word -- that invisible dagger.

EMIL CIORAN

History & Utopia


Words are a pretty fuzzy substitute for mathematical equations.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Foundation and Empire

Tags: Isaac Asimov


Words are not necessary to one's experience of the true life.

DON DELILLO

Point Omega


Words are sometimes signs of ideas; sometimes of the want of them.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust

Tags: Eliza Cook


Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.

NEALE DONALD WALSCH

Conversations with God

Tags: Neale Donald Walsch