Dictionary Quotes · Page 10

Will I have to use a dictionary to read your book?" asked Mrs. Dodypol. "It depends," says I, "how much you used…

— Alexander Theroux

Success brings poise, especially avoirdupois. Success comes before work only in the dictionary.

— William Cranch Bond

A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.

— John Henry Newman

“They've really begun the war," he said to himself. "And all over a word in a dictionary, the ninnies!”

— Natalie Babbitt

I never understood whether the word 'amnesty' is correct or not. Maybe I am not very intelligent but I checked the dictionary…

— Kapil Dev

The word 'romance,' according to the dictionary, means excitement, adventure, and something extremely real. Romance should last a lifetime.

— Billy Graham

Let us designate anarchism1 anarchism as you define it. Let us desiginate anarchism2 anarchism as I and the American Heritage College Dictionary…

— Bryan Caplan

For my last birthday, Dad bought me a pocket-sized Collins English Dictionary. It would only fit in a pocket that had been…

— Joe Dunthorne

The only way to learn a language properly, in fact, is to marry a man of that nationality. You get what they…

— Zsa Zsa Gabor

In the room where I work, I have a chalkboard, and as I'm going along, I write the made-up words on it.…

— Neal Stephenson

You invented the words, and you gave me a dictionary and you said, 'These are what the words mean.' Well, this is…

— Charles Manson

Symbols and emblems were everywhere. Buildings and pictures were designed to be read like books. Everything stood for something else; if you…

— Philip Pullman

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend…

— Nicole Krauss

Many journalists become very defensive when you suggest to them that they are anything but impartial and objective. The problem with those…

— John Pilger

Life is not when you find a word in the dictionary, it is when you type the wrong word and it gives…

— Vikrant Parsai

I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words,…

— Drew Barrymore

The secret is not to betray your ignorance. Just maneuver, avoid the quicksands and obstacles, and the rest can be found in…

— Guy de Maupassant

I'll always take Scrabble and chess if I'm going filming. But I do have the Scrabble dictionary, which can be infuriating for…

— Saffron Burrows

“To creative people, the compendium of the white man's dialect are unfashionable, because their creations are more than what the tongue could…

— Michael Bassey Johnson

I'm going to be so normal that when people look up normal in the dictionary, my name will be there.

— Wendy Mass

Your mission statement says Galer Street is based on global "connectitude." (You people don't just think outside the box, you think outside…

— Maria Semple

There is a word Kristos in the Greek dictionary, and this word is supposed to be borrowed from the Sanskrit word "Krishna,"…

— A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

The only place where compensation comes before service is in the dictionary or anywhere the government meddles.

— Orrin Woodward

Check the dictionary for a P.I.M.P. And when you look it up, potnah tell me who ya see. Young J-O-C, yeah that's…

— Yung Joc

I just wish they'd put a new word in the dictionary bigger than love because love just doesn't describe what I feel.

— John Mayer

I don't know. Sometimes I try to say what's on my mind and it comes out sounding like I ate a dictionary…

— Anonymous

There are hundreds of thousands of words that aren't in any print dictionary today... because there's no space for all of them.

— Erin McKean

Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their agreement, as falsity means…

— William James

“There ought to be a dictionary of smiles; somewere you can look them up and find out what they mean.”

— Tom Holt

Me? Well, I don't know, I must go to a dictionary and learn what a crook is. I've never been a crook.

— Jacob Zuma

“When I see a dictionary on my desk I feel like I'm looking at some strange dog leaving a twisty piece of…

— Haruki Murakami

I used to just sit down and read the dictionary, and I read the Bible and Shakespeare from cover to cover.

— Joe R. Lansdale

What I liked about Greece was [...] the impressive force of the language itself, unconfined by dictionaries, spoken in the streets, in…

— Peter Levi

Look up the word role in the dictionary and you'll see it means playing a part. That's why I call myself a…

— Shaquille O'Neal

Next to the word 'luvvie' in the dictionary, there's a picture of me. At least in the American editions.

— John Lithgow

DAGUERREOTYPE Will take the place of painting. (See PHOTOGRAPHY.) (From The Dictionary of Received Ideas, assembled from notes Flaubert made in the…

— Gustave Flaubert

I wonder what the difference between love and control is, but I'm afraid to look those words up in a dictionary.

— Kevin Sampsell

As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between fact and what most people call fiction is about fifteen pages in the…

— Charles de Lint

“Mizuko loved reading the dictionary. She liked it when there were multiple meanings for words and when opposite meanings could be contained.”

— Olivia Sudjic

Men command fewer words than they have ideas to express, and language, as Jean Paul said, is a dictionary of faded metaphors.

— Walter Lippmann