3,439 Quotes About Words

…words have been all my life, all my life--this need is like the Spider's need who carries before her a huge Burden of Silk which she must spin out--the silk is her life, her home, her safety--her food and drink too--and if it is attacked or pulled down, why, what can she do but make more, spin afresh, design anew….

Whatever is written is but a silent voice, unheard until it is given a voice in the reading.

And what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!

Now that I no longer think I find words for all my thoughts.

Il lisait lentement en épelant les syllabes, les murmurant à mi-voix comme s'il les dégustait, et, quand il avait maîtrisé le mot entier, il le répétait d'un trait. Puis il faisait la même chose avec la phrase complète, et c'est ainsi qu'il s'appropriait les sentiments et les idées que contenaient les pages.

By giving words the latitude she does, (Marianne) Van Hirtum emphasizes their contagious qualities: they become almost like viruses, with which it is necessary to put oneself in harmony by sympathetic magic if one is not to be overwhelmed. ... What is essential is to become one with the sickness, that is, in the context of language as a whole, to enter into contact with words.

Words and a book and a belief that the world is words...

Words have weight.

When grief impounds our thinking and eats our brains, it seeps through all the cracks of our daily living. Only the soothing wind of comforting words may counter the withering twilight and the frostiness of darkness. ("All the words he always wanted to tell her.")