Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement . . . says heaven and earth in one word . . . speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time. It has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time. —Christopher Fry More about this quote Tags: attention wonder poetry language amazement Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Words are loaded pistols. —Jean-Paul Sartre More about this quote Tags: words guns Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
As a poet and writer, I deeply love and I deeply hate words. I love the infinite evidence and change and requirements and possibilities of language; every human use of words that is joyful, or honest, or new because experience is new. . . . But, as a black poet and writer, I hate words that cancel my name and my history and the freedom of my future: I hate the words that condemn and refuse the language of my people in America. —June Jordan More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I could eat alphabet soup and shit better lyrics. —Johnny Mercer, on a British musical More about this quote Tags: musicals lyrics Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses. —William Butler Yeats More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
All the fun's in how you say a thing. —Robert Frost More about this quote Tags: speech fun Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Think of a word as a pendulum instead of a fixed entity. A word can sweep by your ear and by its very sound suggest hidden meanings, preconscious associations. Listen to these words: blood, tranquil, democracy. You know what they mean literally but you have associations with those words that are cultural, as well as your own personal associations. —Rita Mae Brown More about this quote Tags: words meaning democracy Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The power of words is immense. A well-chosen word has often sufficed to stop a flying army, to change defeat into victory, and to save an empire. —Émile de Girardin More about this quote Tags: power words change defeat victory Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. —Lord Byron More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact. —Willa Cather More about this quote Tags: words knowledge facts Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence. —George Steiner More about this quote Tags: reality silence language Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
After all, when you come right down to it, how many people speak the same language even when they speak the same language? —Russell Hoban More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it. —Ludwig Wittgenstein More about this quote Tags: life language complexity complication organism Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. —Roland Barthes More about this quote Tags: words language desire Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Health is my expected heaven. —John Keats, who suffered from, and died of, tuberculosis More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email