Words Quotes

12991 Words quotes by 5885 unique authors

Words in prose ought to express the intended meaning; if they attract attention to themselves, it is a fault; in the very best styles you… — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you can't understand them. The best sentence? The shortest. — Anatole France
The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. — Hippocrates
Use familiar words-words that your readers will understand, and not words they will have to look up. No advice is more elementary, and no advice… — James J. Kilpatrick
He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. — John Ray
Start early and work hard. A writer's apprenticeship usually involves writing a million words (which are then discarded) before he's almost ready to begin. That… — David Eddings
Some words have to be explicitly uttered, Lenore. Only by actually uttering certain words does one really DO what one SAYS. 'Love' is one of… — David Foster Wallace
Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and… — W. Somerset Maugham
In the most basic way, writers are defined not by the stories they tell, or their politics, or their gender, or their race, but by… — Donald E. Westlake
Acutely aware of the poverty of my means, language became obstacle. At every page I thought, 'That's not it.' So I began again with other… — Elie Wiesel
And the reason you hate writing so much is because you start analyzing your work before you're done pouring it onto the page. Your Left-brain… — Jeff Bollow
The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the… — Anne Enright
Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your… — Anne Enright
I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories. — Jacqueline Woodson
The words of the world want to make sentences. — Gaston Bachelard
In writing, you discover interior sonorities in words. Dipthongs sound differently beneath the pen. One hears them with their sounds divorced. — Gaston Bachelard
It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words… — Joan Baez
Grab a pen and put down some words - your name even - and a title: something to see, to revise, to carve, to do… — Jacques Barzun
Often when I write I am trying to make words do the work of line and color. I have the painter's sensitivity to light. Much… — Elizabeth Bowen
Those who sniff decay in every shift of sense or alteration of usage do the language no service. Too often for such people the notion… — Bill Bryson
The words! I collected them in all shapes and sizes and hung them like bangles in my mind. — Hortense Calisher
Words fascinate me. They always have. For me, browsing in a dictionary is like being turned loose in a bank. — Eddie Cantor
Words are the most powerful thing in the universe... Words are containers. They contain faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind. — Charles Capps
In good writing, words become one with things. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
I've always just wanted to earn my living by writing. The best thing is to go into my study in the morning and put words… — Robert Harris

Who Wrote These Words Quotes

5,885 authors contributed a total of 12,991 Words Quotes, led by these top contributors: