WORDS QUOTES

quotations about words

Words quote

Although they are
only breath, words
which I command
are immortal

SAPPHO

"Words"

Tags: Sappho


Words are the bricks of our world and they have the power to change it.

ENOCK MAREGESI

"East Africa: Writing for Kiswahili Language Revolution", The Citizen, February 9, 2016


Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe

THE BEATLES

"Across the Univers", Let It Be

Tags: The Beatles


For each person there is a sentence--a series of words--which has the power to destroy him ... another sentence exists, another series of words, which will heal the person. If you're lucky you will get the second; but you can be certain of getting the first: that is the way it works. On their own, without training, individuals know how to deal out the lethal sentence, but training is required to deal out the second.

PHILIP K. DICK

Valis

Tags: Philip K. Dick


It is a world of words that creates a world of things.

J. M. COETZEE

In the Heart of the Country

Tags: J. M. Coetzee


Words once spoke can never be recall'd.

WENTWORTH DILLON

Art of Poetry

Tags: Wentworth Dillon


Words used carelessly, as if they did not matter in any serious way, often allowed otherwise well-guarded truths to seep through.

DOUGLAS ADAMS

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Tags: Douglas Adams


Words are like butter
Rolling off my lips
Cut like a knife
And now I'm sinking battleships

GERI HALLIWELL

Passion

Tags: Geri Halliwell


Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that can not bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.

JOSÉ SARAMAGO

Blindness

Tags: José Saramago


Words, in their distant past, have the past of my reveries. For a dreamer, a dreamer of words, they are all swollen with insanities. Besides, let anyone dream, and incubate a very familiar word for a little while. Then the must unexpected rare things hatch out of the word which was sleeping in its inert meaning, like a fossil of meaning.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


It is one of the most mysterious penalties of men that they should be forced to confide the most precious of their possessions to things so unstable and ever changing, alas, as words.

GEORGES BERNANOS

The Diary of a Country Priest

Tags: Georges Bernanos


In an age that persecutes deviants, you can yet lose your life for being the possessor of a dangerous or unacceptable story. Words are powerful, which means that words can also be fatal.

MARGARET ATWOOD

address at the Jaipur Literature Festival, January 21, 2016


Something unfathomable lies behind every thought ... something for which there aren't any words.

PETER WEISS

The Tower

Tags: Peter Weiss


Words travel as swiftly as desire, so it is possible to send a message of love without them.

LAURA ESQUIVEL

Swift as Desire


We battle on in words, as always, mere words, and what's the cure? We cannot find a thing.

HOMER

The Iliad


The views of men can only be known, or guessed at, by their words or actions.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

letter to Patrick Henry, January 15, 1799

Tags: George Washington


Words themselves were the ultimate barrier to revelation.

FRANK HERBERT

Heretics of Dune


Human beings can reach such desperate solitude that they may cross a boundary beyond which words cannot serve, and at such moments there is nothing left for them but to bark.

ANAÏS NIN

Collages

Tags: Anaïs Nin


One could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. For how could one express in words these emotions of the body? express that emptiness there?

VIRGINIA WOOLF

To the Lighthouse

Tags: Virginia Woolf


The words were on their way, and when they arrived, she would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like the rain.

MARKUS ZUSAK

The Book Thief

Tags: Markus Zusak