Know Words From Letters Quotes & Sayings

Among the many worlds which man did not receive as a gift of nature, but which he created with his own mind, the world of books is the greatest. Every child, scrawling his first letters on his slate and attempting to read for the first time, in so doing, enters an artificial and complicated world; to know the laws and rules of this world completely and to practice them perfectly, no single human life is long enough. Without words, without writing, and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space in a single house or single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books. — Hermann Hesse

The well from which we receive grace is only filled by sharing it with others. --- Charles James's Diary — Richard Paul Evans

Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They're grown right here in our orchards."
"I didn't know that words grew on trees," said Milo timidly.
"Where did you think they grew?" shouted the earl irritably. A small crowd began to gather to see the little boy who didn't know that letters grew on trees.
"I didn't know they grew at all," admitted Milo even more timidly. Several people shook their heads sadly.
"Well, money doesn't grow on trees, does it?" demanded the count.
"I've heard not," said Milo.
"Then something must. Why not words?" exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business. — Norton Juster

Safe Sex
If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident
they will not meet again; if he avoids affectionate words;
if she has grown insensible skin under skin; if they desire
only the tribute of another's cry; if they employ each other
as revenge on old lovers or families of entitlement and steel
then there will be no betrayals, no letters returned unread,
no frenzy, no hurled words of permanent humiliation,
no trembling days, no vomit at midnight, no repeated
apparition of a body floating face-down at the pond's edge — Donald Hall

Simple ideas become obsessions, almost like a meditation. — Mary Heilmann

Wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: "Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring!" And they'll say: "Yes, that's one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn't he, dad?" "Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that's saying a lot. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Why? Don't you know why you love me?"
"I know that I'm happiest at your side," I said fervently. "I know that when we're apart, my heart is with you, when we disagree I still want you near. It's like I was made for you, amira, but I don't know why."
"Kashmir . . ." She laughed a little in disbelief. "That's . . . that's what love looks like."
"But is it only a trick of Navigation?" I asked, nearly pleading. "And if so, what is truly mine?"
"I am."
Her words took me by surprise. She said it so simply - so quiet, so true. Only two words, three letters, one breath, but never had a promise held more meaning. She turned to me then, and in her eyes, I saw not oblivion, but infinity, and the stars were not as bright as her smile. — Heidi Heilig

I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man , certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians by saying: That they, who deck themselves out in the labours of others will not allow me my own. They will say that I, having no literary skill, cannot properly express that which I desire to treat of, but they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience rather than by words; and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well. And so, as mistress, I will cite her in all cases. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Reading all my old love letters was disorienting. You remember thinking the thoughts and writing the words but, man, you can't TOUCH those feelings. Its like they belonged to someone else. Someone you don't even know. I'm aware, in an intellectual way. That I felt all those things about him, but this emotions are far away now.
What's so strange to me is that I can't even force my heart back to that place where I felt that all consuming passion. That makes me feel distant from myself. Who WAS I then? Will I ever be able to get back to that place? Reading the letters again made me wonder: Which is the real me? The one who saw the world in that emotionally saturated way, or the me who sees it the way I do now? — Bill Shapiro

There is a dramatic conflict in what is commonly called the human sciences. Should we postulate a typical human reality and describe its psychic modalities, taking into account only the imperfections, or should we not rather make a constant, solid endeavor to understand man in an everchanging light? — Frantz Fanon

Sometimes, life can feel like Scrabble. You know you've got words in there somewhere, but no matter how many times you rearrange the letters, you can't seem to make sense of the jumble. Then you glance up at the person you're playing with and see him looking at you, and it's as if by simply being in your life, he's introduced you to yourself. And you look back down at your letters and everything you couldn't see before clicks into place, explained, decoded. — Tyler Oakley

What are you burning?" On a glance, just some papers.
"I write in a journal." He spoke below his breath, so that his words weren't quite for me. "Because I like to see everything written down. So that I know it really happened. That I wasn't just making it up. Then I read it and memorize it. And then I have to destroy the hard evidence."
I thought of my own journal, the muddle of every page. All those unfiltered, lunatic letters to Sean Ryan.
"What is it, exactly, that you need to destroy?"
"Everything that I don't want to be true. — Adele Griffin

The memory was the only recording instrument of the great part of the population. Deeds and transfers were made permanent by beating young retainers so they would remember. The training of the Welsh poets was not practice but memorizing. On knowing 10,000 poems, one took a position. This has always been true. Written words have destroyed what must have been a remarkable instrument. The Pastons speak of having the messenger read the letter so that he could repeat it verbatim if it was stolen or lost. And some of these letters were complicated. If Malory were in prison, it is probably true that he didn't need books. He knew them. If I had only twelve books in my library I would know them by heart. And how many men had no memory in the fifteenth century? No - the book owned must have been supplemented by the book borrowed and thus by the book heard. The tremendous history of the Persian Wars of Herodotus was known by all Athenians and it was not read by them, it was read to them. — John Steinbeck

I ... What are you saying, Zsadist?" she stammered, even though she'd heard every word.
He glanced back down at the pencil in his hand and then turned to the table. Flipping the spiral notebook to a new page, he bent way over and labored on top of the paper for quite a while. Then he ripped the sheet free.
His hand was shaking as he held it out. "It's messy."
Bella took the paper. In a child's uneven block letters there were three words: I LOVE YOU
Her lips flattened tight as her eyes stung. The handwriting got wavy and then disappeared.

"Maybe you can't read it," he said in a small voice. "I can do it over."

She shook her head. "I can read it just fine. It's ... beautiful."
"I don't expect anything back. I mean ... I know that you don't ... feel that for me anymore. But I wanted you to know. It's important that you knew. — J.R. Ward

I think of the note.

I want to say me too.

I want to say I know.

I want to say I can read the gaps in your sentences. I can read the space between your letters. I know your language. It's my language too.

I want to say that. — Maria Dahvana Headley

Even the continents drift. — George Will

Four. That's what I want you to remember. If you don't get your idea across in the first four minutes, you won't do it. Four sentences to a paragraph. Four letters to a word. The most important words in the English language all have four letters. Home. Love. Food. Land. Peace ... I know peace has five letters, but any damn fool knows it should have four. — Lyndon B. Johnson

As hipster chicks age, and their skin starts to sag, tramp stamps sink below waistbands, like the sun slipping into the sea ... — Dana Gould

Then he was forming letters again, one at a time on her back, while Laurel clung to him, full of heart and body, still joined to him intimately. Wanting his words, needing them, moved profoundly by them.
I love you.
One letter after the other, until they were all there, telling her everything she needed to know here in the dark. — Erin McCarthy

Roger Revelle died of a heart attack three months after the Cosmos story was printed. Oh, how I wish he were still alive today. He might be able to stop this scientific silliness and end the global warming scam. He might well stand beside me as a global warming denier. — John Coleman

I believe that what we are fighting here is not just a small group of people who have hijacked a religion, but it is a civilization bent on destroying ours. — Tom Tancredo

She knew it the way people say they know they are about to be hit by lightning, yet remain powerless to run, unable to avoid their fate. She panicked, as anyone might have when disparate parts of her life were about to crash into each other, certain to leave a path of anguish and debris. It was true that devotion could be lost as quickly as it was found, which was why some people insisted that love letters be written in ink. How easy it was for even the sweetest words to evaporate, only to be rewritten as impulse and infatuation might dictate. How unfortunate that love could not be taught or trained, like a seal or a dog. Instead it was a wolf on the prowl, with a mind of its own, and it made its own way, undeterred by the damage done. Love like this could turn honest people into liars and cheats, as it now did ... — Alice Hoffman

If you want to fight evil, you have to climb down in the slime to do so. — David Gemmell

But she wrote out some extra words on a piece of paper so Rain could practice reading. "Is this a magic spell?" the girl asked her.
"Don't let me get sappy on you, but when you get right down to it, every collection of letters is a magic spell, even if it is a moronic proclamation by the Emperor. Words have their impact, girl. Mind your manners. I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing."
-Out of Oz — Gregory Maguire

Once I asked my dad how you know when you're in love. He said you just know, and that if you have to ask the question then you haven't been in love yet. And he's right. Because there aren't words for this. No combination of letters could ever represent what she is to me. — Mindy McGinnis

I am the poet with scaring words and blurred letters. I do not know if my poetry is a blessing or a curse. — Doutor Luis Alexandre Ribeiro Branco

I find my own happiness in life...other people are not necessary. — Natalie De Clare

Oh Susie, I often think that I will try to tell you how very dear you are, and how I'm watching for you, but the words won't come, though the tears will, and I sit down disappointed. Yet, darling, you know it all
then why do I seek to tell you? I do not know. In thinking of those I love, my reason is all gone from me, and I do fear sometimes that I must make a hospital for the hopelessly insane, and chain myself up there so I won't injure you. — Emily Dickinson

If I let them all treat me like I was broken, then how was I going to convince myself I wasn't? — Patricia Briggs

But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. — William Shakespeare

My father old Cosway, with his white marble tablet in the English church at Spanish Town for all to see. It have a crest on it and a motto in Latin and words in big black letters. I never know such lies. [ ... ] "Pious", they write up. "Beloved by all." Not a word about the people he buy and sell like cattle. "Merciful to the weak", they write up. Mercy! [ ... ] I can still see that tablet before my eye because I go to look at it often. I know by heart all the lies they tell - no one stand up and say, Why you write lies in the church? — Jean Rhys

I saw a lady on TV, she was born without arms. That's sad, but then they said, "Lola does not know the meaning of the word 'can't'." That, to me, is even worse in a way. Not only is she missing arms, but she doesn't understand simple contractions. It's easy, Lola - you just take two words, put them together, take out the middle letters, put in a comma, and you raise it up! — Mitch Hedberg

I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand
hopeful and selectively blind as the next guy, but because I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand
it on your own. It's like when you're starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the "cat" is connected to an actual cat, and that "dog" is connected to an actual dog. It's that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we're still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that's only spelling. — David Levithan

Without the letters of condolence, telegrams of congratulations, and occasional postcards, the friendship of a separated friend is not a social reality. It has no existence without the rites of friendship. Social rituals create a reality which would be nothing without them. It is not too much to say that ritual is more to society than words are to thought. For it is very possible to know something and then find words for it. But it is impossible to have social relations without symbolic acts. — Mary Douglas

There is no fruit which is not bitter before it is ripe. — Publilius Syrus

It's not my job to critique the writing. I'm there to serve it. I had to figure out a way to make it work. — Julia Stiles

Nothing of it spoken between them. They could read it on each other, their faces wrinkled pages. Words hiding in the folds of their clothes. She was made of letters then, as all of us are now. Here, in these words. Us and the city and the towns and river, and everything else, too. All that we know, and everything - everyone - we wish we knew. — Brian Francis Slattery

I've been involved in something which was chaotic and insane. All I can say now is that I am, and intend to stay, a single man. — Sylvester Stallone

A few words which he wanted to emphasize were put into brackets or set off by quotation marks. My first impulse was to point out to him that it was ridiculous to put slang words and expressions between quotation marks, for that prevents them from entering the language. But I decided not to. When I received his letters, his parentheses made me shudder. At first, it was a shudder of slight shame, disagreeable. Later (and now, when I reread them) the shudder was the same, but I know, by some indefinable, imperceptible change, that it is a shudder of love- it is both poignant and delightful, perhaps because of the memory of the word shame that accompanied it in the beginning. Those parentheses and quotation marks are the flaw on the hip, the beauty mark on the thigh whereby my friend showed that he was himself, irreplaceable, and that he was wounded. — Jean Genet