Big Vocabulary Quotes & Sayings

His gaze didn't stray from my face. "You're a smart woman, Ella."
"Are you intimidated by a woman with a big vocabulary?"
"Hell, yes. Any woman with an IQ higher than room temperature, and I'm gone. Unless she's paying for dinner."
"I could play dumb and you could pay for dinner," I offered.
"Too late. You already used a five-syllable word."
-Jack & Ella — Lisa Kleypas

Our wishes are presentiments of the abilities that lie in us, harbingers of what we will be able to accomplish. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them. — Benjamin Franklin

I like vocabulary and I actually read a book called 'Word Freak,' which is about a guy who basically went into competitive Scrabble for a year. But having a big vocabulary and being good at Scrabble are not the same thing. — Stephen Amell

Actors are all different. They're not all volatile. Some are sweet, some are volatile, but what is fundamentally in there is something that has to be paid attention to, in that they are, I would say, needy. — Ridley Scott

No, it's a Bb. It looks wrong and it sounds wrong, but it's right. — Ralph Vaughan Williams

Of course there are big differences in length and character and vocabulary, but each level has its particular pleasures when it comes to the words one can use and the way one uses them. — Margaret Mahy

But one look at Wildcard's face, and he knew there was trouble.
Problem? he signaled.
Wildcard responded with an obscene gesture that more than conveyed his opinion that not only was this a problem, but it was a big problem.
...
"Okay". That was not anywhere near the complete reaming Muldoon imagined "We'll take a different route down."
"We could", Wildcard agreed. "But they've got a prisoner.."
Oh man, that hurt. Dream op to nightmare ... Muldoon gritted his teeth and considered his options.
"Holy fuck", Wildcard said. "When I tell you that a stupid ass French photog is going to turn this perfect op into a total clusterfuck, what you say sir, is 'Oh, holy fuck'. If this isn't the time to use your full adult vocabulary, Lieutenant, I honestly don't know what is". — Suzanne Brockmann

I enjoy my life very much. — Joe Nichols

Simplicity of all things is the hardest to be copy. — Richard Steele

She was struck by how mostly slim white people got off at the stops in Manhattan and, as the train went further into Brooklyn, the people left were mostly black and fat. She had not thought of them as "fat," though. She had thought of them as "big," because one of the first things her friend Ginika told her was that "fat" in America was a bad word, heaving with moral judgement like "stupid" or "bastard," and not a mere description like "short" or "tall." So she had banished "fat" from her vocabulary. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

What we considered to be so much part of our everyday fashion vocabulary today, where we see all these designers restarting with these big houses, was just beginning then [in the 90th]. — Roopal Patel

I do love a man with a big vocabulary. — Tiffany Reisz

If anyone in your publishing life were to argue against a particular book or a career aspiration for reasons you had not already pondered and rejected after careful analysis, if they dazzled you with brilliant new considerations, then you'd have to back off and revisit your decisions. But what I was told never dazzled me. For example, I was often advised, by different people, that my work would never gain a big audience because my vocabulary was too large. — Dean Koontz

The term 'too big to fail' must be excised from our vocabulary. — Jamie Dimon

I don't like being rumbled, I like to be invisible. — Sebastian Faulks

To see yourself on the big screen, you're big, you hate your voice, your vocabulary. You say the same words, you speak bad. — Carine Roitfeld

The first step in becoming a global citizen is stripping away the preconceptions of how things should be in order to see things for what they are. — Colleen Mariotti

People who do that sort of thing may reap what they sow, but they also destroy the harvest of those who are around them. — Alexander McCall Smith

God, I love a man with a big vocabulary. — Tiffany Reisz

That sounds suspiciously like faith in me," he mocks. "You see faith where only a challenge has been issued. Will you fail? — Karen Marie Moning

Nobody pays attention to the way a person's shirt folds around his shoulder when they sit down, but if that shirt folded in an unusual way, you'd notice it. — John Lasseter

Wow." "You've got quite the vocabulary." "Never use a big word when a small one will suffice." "I could make a crack here, but I won't. — Harlan Coben

Yeah. They wake up a couple of times in the night, but, you know, that is the ineffable nature of the young! I said. This woman was bound to be impressed by what an engaged big sister I was. Also, my vocabulary. — Caitlin Moran

I was a friend during school time, but not much after that. By the time I got to BYU, I was a social mess, an absolute misfit. There is not a shyer, more pathetic kid who stepped on that BYU campus than me. — Sheri L. Dew

All conversation, big or small, is about painting word pictures of your experiences for other people. The more — Nicholas Boothman

I remember when I was probably about ten years old I had a pen pal, and writing letters back and forth with him was one of my favorite things to do. His name was Steve and he lived in one of those huge mansions that's so big it has a name. It was called the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and he told me it was even bigger than the mayor's mansion. We'd send letters back and forth and he'd ask me to send him my favorite books and small pieces of metal or wood that were lying around and all the money I could find in my house. And I'd gather them all up and put cute little stickers of cats on the packages and send them away. It was so fun. Eventually we stopped writing because I moved to another city and he moved out to live on his own. He called it "solitary confinement." I was always so impressed by his vocabulary. — Ellen DeGeneres

When I wake up in the morning ... I don't think, wow, how can I make her love me more? How can I have my way with her? I, I, I? Not in my vocabulary. In fact, I'm a big fan of the letter u. I eat, I think of you. I drink, I drink to you. I cry, so you don't have to. I'd die, for you to live. And I'd survive with a broken heart only if it meant mending yours. - Nixon — Rachel Van Dyken

All of us possess a reading vocabulary as big as a lake but draw from a writing vocabulary as small as a pond. The good news is that the acts of searching and gathering always expand the number of usable words. — Roy Peter Clark

Are you hero enough to unite yourself to one whom you know to be suspected and despised by all around you, and identify your interests and your honor with hers? — Anne Bronte

For three years, all through junior high, my social death was grossly overdetermined. I had a large vocabulary, a giddily squeaking voice, horn-rimmed glasses, poor arm strength, too-obvious approval from my teachers, irresistible urges to shout unfunny puns, a near-eidetic acquaintance with J.R.R. Tolkien, a big chemistry lab in my basement, a penchant for intimately insulting any unfamiliar girl unwise enough to speak to me, and so on. — Jonathan Franzen

Here was the plot: A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing. Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The head of the house brained Zog with a golfclub. — Kurt Vonnegut

Accurate and just reasoning is the only catholic remedy, fitted for all persons and all dispositions; and is alone able to subvert that abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon, which, being mixed up with popular superstition, renders it in a manner impenetrable to careless reasoners, and gives it the air of science and wisdom. — David Hume