quotations about words
I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
The Sound and the Fury
Behind every word a whole world is hidden that must be imagined. Actually, every word has a great burden of memories, not only just of one person but of all mankind. Take a word such as bread, or war; take a word such as chair, or bed or Heaven. Behind every word is a whole world. I'm afraid that most people use words as something to throw away without sensing the burden that lies in a word.
HEINRICH BÖLL
The Paris Review, spring 1983
You know, without my telling you, how sometimes a word or name eludes you, and you seek it through running ghosts of shadow -- leaping at it, lying in wait for it to spring upon it, spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, you hear it, see it flash among the branches, and scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it.
CONRAD AIKEN
The House of Dust
Words come in many varieties. They show actions and feelings; they demonstrate obtuse or abstract ideas or they express concrete notions. Often we divide words into simple words, everyday language, and complicated or complex words, and words that should express subtleties. Often we use words not to be clear but to obfuscate our intentions and hide our real meanings. These are the words that at first sound wonderful but upon examining, we come to realize that they are veils hiding truth and vehicles of confusion.
PETER TARLOW
"What words can really mean in life", The Eagle, February 6, 2016
Written words as well as spoken words are not always taken the way they are meant to be taken, so never hesitate to ask, "I am not sure what you mean by that?" Facial expressions and tone of voice play a large role in our understanding, but communication is the key to living in harmony with others.
ELIZABETH SCHADRACK
"Valley Voice: Common sense moves can ease societal woes", The Desert Sun, February 10, 2016
Words once sequenced into phrases were never done with but recycled themselves in perpetuity.
WILLIAM GAY
Provinces of Night
A good word costs as little as a bad one, and is worth more.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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
In the increasingly convincing darkness
The words become palpable, like a fruit
That is too beautiful to eat.
JOHN ASHBERY
Houseboat Poems
It feels like spoken words, this bridge. I want it but fear it. God, I want so desperately to reach the other side -- just like I want the words. I want my words to build bridges strong enough to walk on. I want them to tower over the world so I can stand up on them and walk to the other side.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Getting the Girl
One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Death with Interruptions
As the bud a leaf, so at last the thought becomes a word.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Conversations with God
The gift of words is the gift of deception and illusion.
FRANK HERBERT
Children of Dune
Though I do keep lists of words that catch my attention for a variety of reasons, they rarely make it into poems, not infrequently because I lose the lists.
WALTER BARGEN
"An Interview with Walter Bargen", BkMk Press
He that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
There are some things for which three words are three too many, and three thousand words that many words too less.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Absalom, Absalom!
Words are soldiers of fortune
Hired by different ideas.
MAXWELL BODENHEIM
"Impulsive Dialogue"
Leave words to them whom words, not doings, move.
ARTHUR SYMONS
"Variations Upon Love"
When I was a girl my mother said
I chattered like a magpie
even in my sleep, as if I knew one day
the words would all be stopped,
wine corked up in a bottle.
MAGGIE BUTT
"I am the Sphinx"