Four Letter Word Quotes & Sayings

Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself. — Dick Cavett

Years ago in 1959 when Dellinger was already an editor on Liberation (then an anarchist-pacifist magazine, of worthy but not very readable articles in more or less vegetarian prose) Mailer had submitted a piece, after some solicitation, on the contrast between real obscenity in advertising, and alleged obscenity in four-letter words. The piece was no irreplaceable work of prose, and in fact was eventually inserted quietly into his book, Advertisements for Myself, but it created difficulty for the editorial board at Liberation, since there was a four-letter word he had used to make his point, the palpable four-letter word which signifies a woman's most definitive organ: these editorial anarchists were decorous; they were ready to overthrow society and replace it with a communion of pacifistic men free of all laws, but they were not ready to print cunt. — Norman Mailer

In our post-everything culture, obey has become a four-letter word. Obeying is for wimps. Obeying is for people who didn't do well enough on their SATs to write their own rules. Only the weak and the feeble and the young - -well, not even the young anymore - -need to obey. Funny, because the root of the word obey is from the French verb meaning "to listen, or to give ear to." It was never intended as a militant word, but one of hearing, of understanding. Of getting it. For a world obsessed with staying in constant communication, we aren't really very good listeners. — Heather Choate Davis

The thing is, acoustic could be like a four-letter word to a lot of kids. — Billie Joe Armstrong

We have a lot of kids who don't know what works means. They think work is a four-letter word. — Hillary Clinton

You say love is just a four letter word. — Bob Dylan

It's a four-letter word for a part of the human anatomy but it's not m-i-n-d. — Joseph Hansen

To make money you have to use a four letter word: SELL. — Richie Norton

Any woman who can't say a four-letter word sometimes is deceitful. — Fanny Brice

It's not real. Love is a product of habit and routine. If you break that habit and change those routines, the person you've loved and lost and can't live without suddenly becomes an easy memory to file in the back of your mind . In other words, love isn't a heart condition. It's not even an emotional one. It's just a four-letter word we use when we want to control someone else and ruin their life if we ever decide to walk out on them — Morgan Parker

All my friends and peers keep asking me when I'm going to rest - I just tell them it's another dirty four-letter word! — Dionne Warwick

Survival is a four letter word. — Alexis De Veaux

Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way: I love you. You do not know me (although you have seen me, smiled at me). I know you (although not so well as I would like. I want to be there when your eyes flutter open in the morning, and you see me, and you smile. Surely this would be paradise enough?). So I do declare myself to you now, with pen set to paper. I declare it again: I love you. — Neil Gaiman

The walls are covered -crammed- with writing. No. Not writing. They are covered with a single four-letter word that has been inscribed over and over, on every available surface.
Love. — Lauren Oliver

Just another four-letter word. — Tennessee Williams

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Senator John Kerry, who is running for president, said that when he voted for the war in Iraq, he didn't expect President Bush to 'f
it up as badly as he did.' Here's some breaking news, tomorrow former Vice President Al Gore expected to endorse Howard Dean as the Democratic nominee for president of the United States - and you thought John Kerry was using four letter words before! Actually, to John Kerry, Dean is a four letter word. — Jay Leno

Think about these things and see if they make sense to you. You will find that work will no longer be a four-letter word. It will be a three-letter word: fun. — Frederick Lenz

The four-letter word for psychotherapy is Talk. — Eric Hodgins

Tax is not a four-letter word; rather, it's the price we pay for the country we want. — Alex Himelfarb

My favorite six letter word is
always
because it promises
so much.

My favorite five letter word is
never
because it insists on contradicting
the promise.

My favorite four letter word is
once
because it says it
happened then.

My favorite three letter word is
yes
because I'm just now learning
to say it
to my heart.

My favorite two letter word is
if
because it makes
all things possible
like this:

If not always
If not never
Then once.

Yes. — Kate DiCamillo

It seems to me that if there were any logic to our language, trust would be a four letter word. — Tom Cruise

And what is love but a four-letter word for trouble? — Elizabeth Cunningham

I don't save money. Save is a four letter word! I like to borrow money because I can get richer faster on borrowed money. I have what is called retained earnings, so I don't have to save money. If I need money, I will go out and borrow it. — Robert Kiyosaki

Love is a four-letter word, but you don't hear in nearly as often as you hear some other four-letter words. It may be a sign of our times that everyone talks openly about sex, but we seem to be embarrassed to talk about love. — Thomas Sowell

One result of family failure has been the loss of dignity. No better example can be found than in the use of language. [Language has been reduced to] a four-letter word in movies, on television, in comedy routines, and in real life. — Billy Graham

Not until I came to Canada did I realize that snow was a four-letter word. — Alberto Manguel

Life is just a dirty four-letter word: W-O-R-K. — J. P. McEvoy

Love is many things. It's every raw human emotion rolled up into one messy four letter word. There's no rule book and definitely no guarantees. — J.L. Berg

Bored is a four-letter word. — Jill M. Singleton

Only one word described this situation. It was "F'd." Right? But I can't say that word. People who use that word in all its four-letter glory are nothing but common beggars. — Susan May

Trust was now a four-letter word. — Ally Blake

Love is just a four letter word! (laughter) Because that's what it is for me! I don't know what it means... I mean, love didn't work, whatever the hell that is, in my life. Alone I am. I'm not particularly into self-love either. I'm quite prepared to die. And all the objects of my love slowly trail off. — Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Work isn't a four letter word. — Vikki Walton

To far too many, science is a four-letter word, and under the modern media's false equivalency standards, a handful of skeptics are viewed as counterweights to the vast majority of scientists who acknowledge mankind's proven role in global warming. — Christine Pelosi

Forgiveness is a four letter word: Love. — Elizabeth Marx

Once you take away the struggle for food, clothing and shelter, work is the one four letter word that offends everyone. — Lenny Bruce

I really like pop music, I don't think it's a four-letter word. — Patrick Stump

Be a Flea, not a Bull or a Bear. Don't delay, retire anyway. Trading is NOT a four letter word. Buy carefully, sell aggressively. Don't mark duds while drinking. When your plan fails, change it. Don't be slow, don't be greedy. Don't be obtuse with a machine gun pointed at you. There's still time to build wealth and retire well.

The Stock Market Flea: Lessons from the Front — James J. Houts

I'm a scientist. We don't talk about the spirit. Soul is a four letter word in our tradition. — Candace Pert

You know you're getting old when a four-letter word for something pleasurable two people can do in bed together is R-E-A-D. — Denis Norden

Work is a four letter word. It conjures up the same image the world over getting up in the morning to do something you don't want to do, day in day out. After a few months work, or years, depending on the person's primeval yearning for freedom, you feel like a robot: alarm clock, get up, wash, catch the train, work, go home, watch TV, go to bed. In that one sentence I've probably just described the daily routine of 95% of the working population of England. It's the same in every other developed country in the world. Routine is the cause of most marriage break ups and social discontent. — John Harris

To listen to some people in Politics, you'd think-nice-was a four-letter word. — David Steel

The most disgusting four letter word in the English language is 'cage'. — Philip Wollen

Fame is a four-letter word. And like tape, or zoom, or face, or pain, or love, or life, what ultimately matters is what we do with it. — Fred Rogers

I spent every night until four in the morning on my dissertation, until I came to the point when I could not write another word, not even the next letter. I went to bed. Eight o'clock the next morning I was up writing again. — Abraham Pais

If I was dealing with a trader, every other word had to be a four-letter word. — Muriel Siebert

Real' is a four-letter word, and I'll thank you to use it as little as possible while you live under my roof. — Seanan McGuire

After working with many nutritionists, reading books, and practicing trial and error on my own body, I have finally found a way to control my weight without deprivation. I call my program 'Somersizing,' and Somersizing is not a diet. Diet is a nasty four-letter word that conjures up negative thoughts of sacrifice and obsession and guilt. — Suzanne Somers

Why use a 10 letter word you can barely pronounce ... when a four letter one will do. — Timothy Pina

I'll supervise, shall I?" offered Cogsworth. "To me, 'dust' is a four-letter word."
"'Dust' is a four-letter word to everyone," said Lumiere.
"'Work' is also a four-letter word," said Plumette, under her breath. "Perhaps that is why monsieur strives to avoid it — Jennifer Donnelly

Now, look, baby, 'Union' is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word. — Dorothy Parker

I guess it was only fitting that to them PUNK was a four letter word. However, to people like Dylan and I-punk was our hearts-our souls. We grew up with a lot of uncertainties. To be a teenager isn't always pretty, and our music reflected that. — Brian Joyce

Work is a four-letter word that ends with "K. — Donald Allen Kirch

Fear is only a four letter word. — Jeff Hardy

Life is a four-letter word. — Lenny Bruce

Four-letter words have always offended me. I cringe at hearing them. Can't, don't, and won't are the worst. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Who isn't crazy sometimes? Who hasn't driven around a block hoping a certain person will come out; who hasn't haunted a certain coffee shop, or stared obsessively at an old picture; who hasn't toiled over every word in a letter, taken four hours to write a two-sentence email, watched the phone praying it will ring; who doesn't lay awake at night sick with the image of her sleeping with someone else? — Jess Walter

Trap is a four-letter word, and like so many four-letter words it can mean something entirely else.
--Hugo Anstead — Jennifer A. Girardin

Love is a four letter word if you speak it or write it down, but it becomes powerful once you feel it and live in it. — The Prolific Penman

Love is never just a four letter word. — Colin Tegerdine

And it's beyond my energy to explain why I don't think that four-letter word that everyone's so obsessed over and that gets everyone into so much trouble and pretty much makes everyone behave like an ass can live in a place like this. Somewhere during dry cleaning, details, and missed meals, it flakes away and what you're left with is married people with a tolerable affinity for each other. That little four-letter word can exist only in poetry, or movies of 2 to 3 hours in length. Maybe in a mini-series.
This place of dull details and irksome obligations is a home only to other four-letter words, which are used much more frequently. — Kendare Blake

Hope was supposed to be a good thing, but it was starting to feel like every other four-letter word you're not supposed to say. — Elizabeth Scott

Change is not a four letter word ... but often your reaction to it is! — Jeffrey Gitomer

And if I say to you that I am glad of everything we have done together, and sorry that we will not be here together in forty years, laughing at a faded photo of you impersonating a lion, it having withered well, you less so, as we stand fabulously old, in a city that understands what spirit it takes to be old, to be beautiful, to be much looked at, to be itself, to be never quite caught, to have a past, to be content, to have seen much, to have remained, to have continued ... — Jeanette Winterson

Hope is the most important four-letter word in the language. — Ed Markey

A single word that can be offensive to someone is a horrible thing for anyone who has iman. In other words, filthy language out of your mouth and faith inside your heart cannot coexist. You cannot have iman in your heart and ugly words come out of your mouth. If you have no control over whatever four letter words you keep using every time you get frustrated, there's a spiritual problem, it's not just a habit problem.
How can you use a terrible word for anyone who has iman? — Nouman Ali Khan

I am sure that no one coming to this ceremony expected a High Court judge to use the occasion to talk about that four-letter word, love. But that's a good thing. In life, never be predictable. It's so uncool. — Michael Kirby

Despite appearances, Sym, Love is not a four-letter word. — Geraldine McCaughrean

BOOK, a four-letter word for truth serum" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary
"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 161 — Rodman Philbrick

Now she said, "I'm up to the four-letter words." And I said, "You mean the dirty ones, like shit?" And she laughed and said, "Worse ones than that." And I said, "You mean the c-word and the f-word?" and she said, "No. Like love. — Margaret Atwood

Risk is a four-letter word, but you know something? So is safe. — Chiara Kelly

Debt is a four letter word and means a four word sentence - Be Prepared for Trouble. — Lucas Remmerswaal

Fate! This four-letter little word gave the biggest harm to mankind! We must totally get rid of this degrading concept of primitiveness! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The thing with that word "establishment" is a four-letter word in the 2016 politics, so toxic, so pejorative that pretty much no one wants to be associated with it. — Chris Hayes

Men ought to be a four-letter word! Menn! — Becky Lewellen Povich

In Charleston, temperance is a four letter word. — Mark R. Jones

New Rule: The person who sat in my seat on the flight before me and could not finish the People magazine crossword puzzle has to be ashamed of themselves. I don't know who you are, but "Desperate _wives"? Nothing? A three-letter word for "Writing utensil, you're holding it in your hand." Here's one more for you: Four letters, begins with a v, something you shouldn't be allowed to do this November. — Bill Maher

Love is the most powerful four letter word. — John Wooden

He's meeting his girl now, a girl not much older than 14. A five-and-ten-cents store Cleopatra, a four letter word. — Kurt Vonnegut