Quotes & Sayings About The Tongue And Words

Long looking at paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art ... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar ... We have to recognize that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue. — Jeanette Winterson

She knew that she belonged to this man, body and soul. Every trace of shame departed; it was burnt out by the fire that consumed her. She gave him a thousand opportunities; she fought to turn his words to serious things. He baffled her with his shallow smile and ready tongue, that twisted all topics to triviality. By six o'clock she was morally on her knees before him; she was imploring him to stay to dinner with her. He refused. — Aleister Crowley

What ... are you doing?" She barely got the words out.
"Kissing you." Tom leaned forward again and held the bottom of her chin. He worked his lips over hers until she responded. A soft whimper escaped her throat and he kept at it. Biting, sucking and finally spearing her mouth with his tongue. This was a wet motherfucking kiss. — Penny Watson

I try to write each piece in the language of the piece, so that I'm not using the same language from piece to piece. I may be using ten or twenty languages. That multiplicity of language and the use of words is African in tradition. And black writers have definitely taken that up and taken it in. It's like speaking in tongues. It may sound like gibberish to somebody, but you know it's a tongue of some kind. Black people have this. We have the ability as a race to speak in tongues, to dream in tongues, to love in tongues. — Alexis De Veaux

Dead. The words fall from my tongue and linger there like poison. A slow death hanging from my lips. I shake the thought away and swallow but I can still taste the remnants in the back of my throat. It's sour and I gag a little as tears swell behind my eyes. — Celia Mcmahon

She's not like anyone I've ever seen before. When I'm not with her, I want to be. And when she opens the book and I see her face, I can barely remember what I'm supposed to say, much less how to speak at all." I test the words on my tongue. "I think I might be in love with her. But how can I really know, since the only love I've ever experienced was written for me? — Jodi Picoult

Wise Bear said something in his own language, mouth twisting in disgust as if the words stained his tongue. He caught Vaelin's enquiring gaze and provided a terse translation, "Cat People. — Anthony Ryan

Beth hates me."
I chuckled, loving Echo for calling it straight. I framed her face with my hands, letting my fingers enjoy the feel of her satin skin. "You 're my world, so i'd say that evens things out."
Echo's eyes widened and she paled. Why was she upset? My mind replayed every moment carefully and then froze, rewound, replayed and froze again on the words i'd said.
It had been so long since i'd let myself fall for anybody. I gazed into her beautiful green eyes and her fear melted. A shy smile tugged at her lips and at my heart. Fuck me and the rest of the world, I was in love.
Echo's gloved hands reached up and guided my head to hers. I let myself bask in her warmth and deepened our kiss, enjoying the teasing taste of her tongue and the way her soft lips moved against mine. Very easily, i could lose myself in her ... forever. — Katie McGarry

You sure you can handle big woman chat, pickney? You sure you ready for that journey? You think good before you answer. Because some people about to forget that me be the head bloodcloth nigger in here. Now, go peel two potato and don't draw me tongue out in this place. — Marlon James

The tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste out sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sout with the same tongue. — Neil Gaiman

If the direction of a horse can be changed by a bit in his mouth, and the direction of a ship can be changed by its small rudder, then I believe the direction of our lives can be changed by the words we let roll over our tongue. You — Joyce Meyer

Sweet Lord of penises, his voice is sexy," Sid sighs over the phone.
"Jealous of what?" I pull the phone away from my mouth and tilt my head.
"I only want to hear 'oh my God' when it's followed by my name and you coming around my cock." His tongue flicks the lobe of my ear.
I shiver and tighten my crossed legs.
"That's it. I'm ruined," Sid cries dramatically. "No man will ever live up to this."
"Both of you stop." My words are breathy and it takes all my strength to lean away from his mouth. — Sadie Grubor

He leaned closer and she swallowed the rest of her words as he pressed a kiss to her lips. He lifted his head slightly and looked into her eyes. She stared back at him, stunned, her heart thudding against her breastbone. He palmed the nape of her neck, and then he was kissing her again, his tongue sweeping into her mouth this time, turning her legs to jelly.
She pressed her body against his, her skin on fire, desire beating a tattoo through her veins. His tongue stroked hers gently, provocatively, and she reached out and gripped his shoulders with both hands.
After a long, long moment he drew back. "Come home with me?" he asked very quietly, his voice a low husk.
Dear God, I thought you'd never ask. — Sarah Mayberry

The words burned on her tongue, but Minerva couldn't give them voice. What a hopeless coward she was. She could pound on his door at midnight and demand to be respected as an individual. She could travel across the country in hopes of being appreciated for her scholarly achievements. But she still lacked the courage to ask for the one thing she wanted most.
To be loved, just for herself. — Tessa Dare

I'm falling in love with you. As the words left his mouth, his lips pressed to mine, giving me the most intense and explosive kiss I had ever had. With the coldness of his lips and the warmth of his tongue beneath mine I saw fireworks and felt them through every part of my body. — Magan Vernon

She is not old, she is not young, The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue. The haggard cheek, the hungering eye, The poisoned words that wildly fly, The famished face, the fevered hand, Who slights the worthiest in the land, Sneers at the just, contemns the brave, And blackens goodness in its grave ... — William Watson

In 2005, the Global Language Monitor - a nonprofit organization that does exactly what its name suggests - issued a tongue-in-cheek list of the year's most politically correct words and phrases. Top — Kevin Dutton

I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched, many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy, black language of blackberry - eating in late September. — Galway Kinnell

I need to devour you."
Those words manage to knock the air right back out of my lungs, and my head spinsas one of his hands skims around my body. He splays it across the small of my back, pulling me closer to him, and leaning over until his lips are a centimeter from my collarbone.
"Sienna?" he growls, and I murmur to acknowledge him.
"I'm going to taste you."
He wasn't asking me, he was flat out telling me what was going to happen between us, and yet I felt myself nod, felt my body mold against his the moment his warm lips sought out the center of my throat.
"You smell like apples." he wispers harshly before his tongue darts out to trace the column of my thorat. I moan, letting my head fall all the way back.
"And you taste like the best kind of sin. — Emily Snow

Those who have the power of reproaching in silence may find it a means more effective than words. There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. — Thomas Hardy

And the speck of my heart, in my shed of flesh and bone, began to sing out, the way the sun would sing if the sun could sing, if light had a mouth and a tongue, if the sky had a throat, if god wasn't just an idea but shoulders and a spine, gathered from everywhere, even the most distant planets, blazing up. Where am I? Even the rough words come to me now, quick as thistles. Who made your tyrant's body, your thirst, your delving, your gladness? Oh tiger, oh bone-breaker, oh tree on fire! Get away from me. Come closer. — Mary Oliver

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words. — Baruch Spinoza

Good." He drank in her nakedness, fervent as a man downing ale after three days in the desert. His eyes, gleaming with unholy intention, came to rest on hers. "Now fuck me."
The command knocked her back like a handful of dust in the face. But only for a moment. He was the one tied up. She folded her arms again. "If you want my cooperation you had better address me more politely than that."
"Fuck me." Like the world's wickedest elocution pupil he articulated the words, lips and tongue and teeth put to such nefarious use. "Fuck me until I thrash and shout beneath you. — Cecilia Grant

Ife onye metalu' ['what a man commits'] - a statement unclear and menacing in its very inconclusiveness. What a man commits ... Follows him? Comes back to take its toll? Was that all? No, that was only part of it ... The real burden of that cryptic scripture seemed to turn the matter right around. Whatever we see following a man, whatever fate comes to take its revenge on him, can only be what that man in some way or another, in a previous life if not in this, has committed. That was it! So those three words wrapped in an archaic tongue and tucked away at the tail of the bus turn out to be the opening segment of a full-blooded heathen antiphony offering a primitive and quite deadly exposition of suffering. The guilty suffers; the sufferer is guilty. As for the righteous, those whose arms are straight, they will always prosper! — Chinua Achebe

Afraid of the tangle of words twisting around my own tongue, I swallow and place my hand against the thick wood of the Barrier. — Carrie Ryan

Let the Spirit be lacking, and there may be wisdom of words, but not the wisdom of God; the powers of oratory, but not the power of God; the demonstration of argument and the logic of the schools, but not the demonstration of the Holy Spirit, the all-convincing logic of His lightning flash, such as convinced Saul before the Damascus gate. When the Spirit was outpoured the disciples were all filled with power from on high, the most unlettered tongue could silence gainsayers, and with its new fire burn its way through obstacles as flames fanned by mighty winds sweep through forests. — Arthur Tappan Pierson

But here's the secret to success when you possess a much-larger-than-average-size cock. You can't just wave it around like a big bat. You've got to treat it like a baseball manager does a closer. A cock with firepower is your secret weapon, and it's worth its weight in gold if you know what to do with the rest of the lineup. Meaning, the dick should never be the star of the show. The woman's name should be the one in lights, and you need to make her feel that way from start to finish. Warm her up right. Use all your tools - hands, fingers, mouth, tongue, words. — Lauren Blakely

A pledge," I say again. "To drive fear into those who will confront us."
Violetta hesitates - only for a moment. "To bind us together."
"I pledge myself to the Rose Society," I begin. "Until the end of my days." One by one, the others call out the same thing, murmurs at first that turn into firm words.
"To use my eyes to see all that happens," says Sergio.
"My tongue to woo others to our side," says Magiano, with his savage smile.
"My ears to hear every secret," Violetta continues.
"My hands," I finish. "To crush my enemies."
"I will do everything in my power to destroy all who stand in my way." Right now, what I want is the throne. Enzo's power. A perfect revenge. And all the Inquisitors, queens, and Daggers in the world won't be able to stop me. — Marie Lu

If toes had eyes, then I could see how my feet know where to go, but toes are blind. And how is it that my tongue speaks words it cannot hear? Because for all its eloquence, the tongue itself is deaf, and flaps in soundlessness. — Jane Roberts

There was nothing to be done. From then on, there were flowers waiting for me every time we met, and in the end I gave in, because I was disarmed by the spontaneity of giving and understood tha Lucie cared for it; perhaps her tongue-tied state, her lack of verbal eloquence, made her think of flowers as a form of speech; not in the sense of heavy-handed conventional flower symbolism, but in a sense still more archaic, more nebulous, more instinctive, prelinguistic; perhaps, having always been sparing of words, she longed for that mute stage of evolution when there were no words and people communicated by simple gestures — Milan Kundera

I have dreamed of that song, of the strange words to that simple rhyme-song, and on several occasions I have understood what she was saying, in my dreams. In those dreams I spoke that language too, the first language, and I had dominion over the nature of all that was real. In my dream, it was the tongue of what is, and anything spoken in it becomes real, because nothing said in that language can be a lie. It is the most basic building brick of everything. In my dreams I have used that language to heal the sick and to fly; once I dreamed I kept a perfect little bed-and-breakfast by the seaside, and to everyone who came to stay with me I would say, in that tongue, "Be whole," and they would become whole, not be broken people, not any longer, because I had spoken the language of shaping. And, — Neil Gaiman

You don't need to kill with a sword, the tongue can do equally a better job and police will not knock on your door — Bangambiki Habyarimana

But despite the ease, theirs was also a world of intrigue and secrets, in which wit and flashy derring-do were rewarded. In such circles, people began to call my father Silver Tongue, and so my mother did, too, smiling and teasing him about his ease with people and his facility with words, all the while feeling intimidated by those things herself. — Scott C. Johnson

I gave as an offering my all to Him Who had won me and saved me, my property, my fame, my health, my very words ... In considering all these things, I preferred Christ. And the words of God were made sweet as honeycombs to me, and I cried after knowledge and lifted up my voice for wisdom. There was moreover the moderation of anger, the curbing of the tongue, the restraint of the eyes, the discipline of the belly, and the trampling under foot of the glory which clings to the earth. — Gregory Of Nazianzus

The tongue is a powerful tool. And the words we say are never forgotten. Never. — Pat Williams

You've had ample opportunity to send me up the river ... you could've easily gotten me locked up long ago just by opening your mouth. I didn't need to marry you to gain your silence. You've given it to me from the start. If you didn't turn on me then, when you had plenty of reason to, I trust that you won't do it now, ring or no ring. I married you, Karissa, because I love you. Nothing more, nothing less."
As many times as he's said those words ... I love you ... it still makes my stomach flutter to hear them come from him. The butterflies soar. He's not an outwardly emotional person, not at all, so when he says it, I know he means it.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss him. His lips are soft, sweet. His tongue tastes like peppermint. "I love you, too, you know."
"I know. — J.M. Darhower

A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men. It is the bread of the spirit, it clotheth the words with meaning, it is the fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding. — Baha'u'llah

This, child, is our worship. To live and survive and play to God from the depths of our souls. This is the call that binds us. When we worship in the good times, it brings God joy. But worship in the midst of agony?" Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth and she shook her head. It was an action befitting the wisdom of the words she'd chosen. "That is authentic adoration of our Creator. An orchestra will worship together, as one body. As one song. A family must do no less. — Kristy Cambron

Wordstruck is exactly what I was - and still am: crazy about the sound of words, the look of words, the taste of words, the feeling for words on the tongue and in the mind. — Robert MacNeil

Nothing?' said Corlath. 'I said there were two things. I have told you the first. You told us what you saw as you saw it. But this is the second thing: you spoke in the Old Tongue, what we call the Language of the Gods, that none knows any more but kings and sorcerers, and those they wish to teach it to. The language I just spoke to you, that you did not recognize- I was repeating the words you had said yourself, a moment before. — Robin McKinley

The words slid fluidly off my tongue, with only an occasional stammer. I could only attribute it to the sweep and flow of water around us. — Sue Monk Kidd

We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words - Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power. — Jack London

She had often disconcerted me by the truth. In the days when we were in love, I would try to get her to say more than the truth - that our affair would never end, that one day we should marry. I wouldn't have believed her, but I would have liked to hear the words on her tongue, perhaps only to give me the satisfaction of rejecting them myself. But she never played that game of make-believe, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, she would shatter my reserve with a statement of such sweetness and amplitude — Graham Greene

One way to express love emotionally is to use words that build up. Solomon, author of the ancient Hebrew Wisdom Literature, wrote, "The tongue has the power of life and death."2 Many couples have never learned the tremendous power of verbally affirming each other. Solomon further noted, "An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up. — Gary Chapman

He looked as surprised as I was about the kiss and more than a little guilty. "I ... " he started. "I'm sorry. That was wrong. You're my dead roommate's little sister, and I'm here to protect you, not to ... " He trailed off, lost for words.
When I finally regained control of my tongue, I said, "It's depraved and you should be ashamed of yourself." I dropped the bottle into the snow and walked determinedly toward him. "Do it again. — Karsten Knight

At times , he didn't understand the meaning of the Koran's words . But he said he liked the enhancing sounds the arabic words made as they rolled off his tongue . He said they comforted him , eased his heart . "They'll comfort you too . Mrariam jo , " he said . "You can summon then in your time of your need , and they won't fail you . God's words will never betray you , my girl . (pg.17) — Khaled Hosseini

The road that connects our thoughts to the ears of others is our tongue. What travel on this road is our word. Our action is the energy which transmits our emotions to the eyes of others and causes a great change in their minds — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Manto's take on Ismat:
Ismat's pen and tongue both run fast. When she starts writing, her ideas race ahead and the words cannot catch up with them. When she speaks, her words seem to tumble over one another. If sheenters the kitchen to show her culinary skill, everything will be in a mess. Being hasty by nature, she would conjure up the cooked roti in her mind even before she had finished kneading the dough. The potatoes would note yet be peeled although she would have already finished making the curry in her imagination. I feel sometimes she may just go into the kitchen andcome out again afer being satiated by her imagination. — Saadat Hasan Manto

What are you doi - " My words are swallowed up as his lips crash down on mine. It isn't a soft kiss - it's intense, furious, in a way I never knew a kiss could be, his lips hard and unforgiving against mine. It's a shut-up-I-hate-you kiss. A you-drive-me-crazy kiss. An if-I-don't-kiss-you-I'll-kill-you kiss. It's a battle - our mouths are opposite fronts, fighting for ground, warring for control. I shove his chest. He bites my lip. I nip his tongue. He tugs my hair. The kiss goes wild as my other arm winds around him, clutching the back of his shirt, my nails raking against the fabric. — Julie Johnson

Words were useless. At times, they might sound wonderful, but they let you down the moment you really needed them. You could never find the right words, never, and where would you look for them? The heart is as silent as a fish, however much the tongue tries to give it a voice. — Cornelia Funke

My faithful companion, Zoe Nightshade, has passed into the stars. I must have a new lieutenant. And I intend to choose one. But first, Father Zeus, I must speak to you privately."
Zeus beckoned Artemis forward. He leaned down and listened as she spoke in his ear.
A feeling of panic seized me. "Annabeth," I said under my breath. "Don't."
She frowned at me. "What?"
Look, I need to tell you something," I continued. The words came stumbling out of me. "I couldn't stand it if ... I don't want you to - "
Percy?" she said. "You look like you're going to be sick."
And that's how I felt. I wanted to say more, but my tongue betrayed me. It wouldn't move because of the fear in my stomach — Rick Riordan

Had we been wed in Scotland, we could have spoken the old vows. Do you know what words, what promises we would have spoken had we been there, not here, this morning?" His hand slid up to her cheek, cupping it as if to soften the effect of his tone, and as Elizabeth gazed at his hard, beloved face in the candlelight her shyness and fears slid away. "No," she whispered.
"I would have said to you," he told her quietly and without shame, "'With my body, I thee worship.'"
He spoke the words now, as a vow, and when Elizabeth realized it, the poignancy of it made her eyes sting with tears. Turning her face into his hand, she kissed his palm, covering his hand with hers, and a groan tore from his chest, his mouth descending on hers in a kiss that was both rough and tender as he parted her lips for the demanding invasion of his tongue. — Judith McNaught

Could I make tongue say more than tongue could utter! Could I make brain grasp more than brain could think! Could I weave into immortal denseness some small brede of words, pluck out of sunken depths the roots of living, some hundred thousand magic words that were as great as all my hunger, and hurl the sum of all my living out upon three hundred pages - then death could take my life, for I had lived it ere he took it: I had slain hunger, beaten death! — Thomas Wolfe

What is your name?" she asked.
"Names are like clothes, lady. I have many."
"And which one do you wear tonight?"
The god smiled. She could see he liked her words. He pulled her to him, pressed his wolf lips to hers and said, "My name is Misery, and would you know yet more?"
"Yes," said the girl, breathing in his scent, the scent of something beautiful, strange and burned. "I would know more."
He flicked at her lips with his tongue and whispered, "So is yours. — M.D. Lachlan

Crowds have one expression, cruel and fixed. You let yourself be trapped by a look. You let yourself be carried off and shut away in a place of silence. There your eyes may be ripped out, your tongue cut off, and your fingers hammered until the little bones splinter. The walls are splashed with thick clots of blood. Words are the worst kind of dog, they drag us along despite ourselves to somewhere we didn't want to go, they obsess us, they don't let us have a moment's rest, a moment's rest.

But before that? Before that is another place altogether. Memory blanks things out methodically. It has several floors, sealed off from one another and there is no passage joining them. One of them is hell. When you fall in, at the very instant you lose your footing, you forget everything, even what light is like. But once you are back in the world you retain only a faint memory of being shut up. It resonates like the dull echo of pain. — Marie Desplechin

I can't bury another friend."
"You won't."
"If anything ever happened to you, Rowan-"
"Don't" he breathed. "Don't even say it. We dealt with that enough the other night."
He lifted a hand - hesitated, and then brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. His callused fingers scrapped against her cheekbone, then caressed the shell of her ear.
It was foolish to even start down that road, when every other man she'd let in had left some wound, in one way or another, accidentally or not.
There was nothing tender in his face. Only a predator's glittering gaze. "When we get back," he said, "remind me to prove you wrong about every thought that just went through your head."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?"
He gave her a sly smile that made thinking impossible. Exactly what he wanted - to distract her from the horrors of tomorrow. "I'll even let you decide how I tell you: with words"- his eyes flickered once to her mouth- "or with my teeth and tongue. — Sarah J. Maas

He's an indulgent sort of man ... ...
With a quick lip and a fierce tongue, the sort of tongue that draws you in with charm and words of praise, awkward silences and desperate worships. — Coco J. Ginger

Whisper of yellow globes
gleaming on lamp posts that sway
like bootleg licker drinkers in the fog
and let your breath be moist against me
like bright beads on yellow globes
telephone the power-house
that the main wires are insulate
(her words play up and down
dewy corridors of billboards)
then with your tongue remove the tape
and press your lips to mine
till they are incandescent — Jean Toomer

If this constant sliding and hiding of meaning were true of conscious life, then we would of course never be able to speak coherently at all. If the whole of language were present to me when I spoke, then I would not be able to articulate anything at all. The ego, or consciousness, can therefore only work by repressing this turbulent activity, provisionally nailing down words on to meanings. Every now and then a word from the unconscious which I do not want insinuates itself into my discourse, and this is the famous Freudian slip of the tongue or parapraxis. But for Lacan all our discourse is in a sense a slip of the tongue: if the process of language is as slippery and ambiguous as he suggests, we can never mean precisely what we say and never say precisely what we mean. Meaning is always in some sense an approximation, a near-miss, a part-failure, mixing non-sense and non-communication into sense and dialogue. — Terry Eagleton

MAY 31 The Power of Your Words Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. PROVERBS 18:21 NASB OUR WORDS have tremendous power and are similar to seeds. By speaking them aloud, they are planted in our subconscious minds, take root, grow, and produce fruit of the same kind. Whether we speak positive or negative words, we will reap exactly what we sow. That's why we need to be extremely careful what we think and say. The Bible compares the tongue to the small rudder of a huge ship, which controls the ship's direction (see James 3:4). Similarly, your tongue will control the direction of your life. You create an environment for either good or evil with your words, and if you're always murmuring, complaining, and talking about how bad life is treating you, you're going to live in a pretty miserable world. Use your words to change your negative situations and fill them with life. — Joel Osteen

And he sang to them, now in the Elven tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness. — J.R.R. Tolkien

WORK, SOMETIMES
I was sad all day, and why not. There I was, books piled
on both sides of the table, paper stacked up, words
falling off my tongue.
The robins had been a long time singing, and now it
was beginning to rain.
What are we sure of? Happiness isn't a town on a map,
or an early arrival, or a job well done, but good work
ongoing. Which is not likely to be the trifling around
with a poem.
Then it began raining hard, and the flowers in the yard
were full of lively fragrance.
You have had days like this, no doubt. And wasn't it
wonderful, finally, to leave the room? Ah, what a
moment!
As for myself, I swung the door open. And there was
the wordless, singing world. And I ran for my life. — Mary Oliver

A tongue is about the size of a bullet, but much more fierce and powerful. — Anthony Liccione

The thing is that this life is so precious and mysterious, I don't know what to say about it most of the time. Words are like birds, passing through the trackless sky. The dog barking, the sound of the purling stream, the wind among the weeping willow trees: how are these not right off the tongue of the Buddha?
Lama Surya Das — Lama Surya Das

Hester shook her head. 'Don't confuse what you do with who you are, dearie. Besides, there's no shame in humble work. Why, Aesop himself, the king of storytellers, was a slave his whole life. Never drew a free breath, yet he shaped the world with just three small words: there once was. And where are his great masters now, hmm? Rotting in tombs, if they're lucky. But Aesop - he still lives to this day, dancin' on the tip of every tongue what's ever told a tale.' She winked at Molly. 'Think on that, next time you're scrubbing floors. — Jonathan Auxier

Tears are the noble language of eyes, and when true love of words is destitute. The eye by tears speak, while the tongue is mute. — Robert Herrick

Why did his tongue cultivate such a great many glissades of truth? I don't know. However, we can see two interesting tendencies: 1. Everything in your father's life that had political blackness was filtered out. Politics were, for him, a swamp that had already drowned too many in his vicinity. Not until late in life would your father change his relationship with politics. Perhaps too late. 2. Certainly we all realized that your father's words were not totally correct. But still we were hypnotized and stimulated. Is it not bizarre how the words of imagination can rumble forth a certain comfort? And is that not reality's reason for the existence of superfluousities like horoscopes, psychologists, and authors? — Jonas Hassen Khemiri

He who has learnt to control his tongue has attained self-control in a great measure. When such a person speaks he will be heard with respect and attention. His words will be remembered, for they will be good and true. When one who is established in truth prays with a pure heart, then things he really needs come to him when they are really needed: he does not have to run after them. The man firmly established in truth gets the fruit of his actions without apparently doing anything. God, the source of all truth, supplies his needs and looks after his welfare. — B.K.S. Iyengar

Words, like anything else used too often, soon depreciate in value, lose their edge, and cease to bite into our lives. When phrases, such as unconditional love, trip too easily off the tongue, the speaker's ego may experience a temporary rush of exhilaration using an in salvation slogan, but his heart remains unchanged. — Brennan Manning

Death peeked around corners; it winked at her in the mirror then vanished; it hummed along with the radio and then faded away. It wheedled into her mind and her words, leaving a humid vapor around her heart and a thick fuzzy taste on her tongue. — Brandy Heineman

What do you listen to in the Protestant church? To the words of a man who has been chosen for his eloquence - and not too eloquent either, mark you, or he get's the bum's rush from the pulpit, for fear that in the end he will use his golden tongue for political ends. For a golden tongue is never satisfied until it has wagged itself over the destiny of a nation, and this the church is wise enough to know. — Djuna Barnes

At the hill's foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent as a tree; but in his hand was a small golden bloom of elanor, and a light was in his eyes. He was wrapped in some fair memory: and as Frodo looked at him he knew that he beheld things as they had been in this same place. For the grim years were removed from the face of Aragorn, and he seemed clothed in white, a young lord fall and fair; and he spoke words in the Elvish tongue to one whom Frodo could not see. Arwen vanimelda, namarie! He said, and then he drew a breath, and returning out of his thought he looked at Frodo and smiled.

'Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth,' he said, 'and here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!' And taking Frodo's hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as a living man. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I'll leave the way of words to walk the wood I'll be the forest's man, and greet the sun, And feel the silence blossom on my tongue like language. — Neil Gaiman

Opening and closing the pages of a celestial dictionary at will and always falling upon the words hair fur and sex until a bunch of distant images arise at the same time as June when she kneels in front of me her tongue making little cross-strokes in my full-moon fur my enchanted-lake fur we should do it again so that I too can stroke through June's fur. — Nicole Brossard

Tell me I helped," I say, and it's a demand. I need to know I can be what he needs, that we can get through the darkness together. "You do more than help. You're the reason I take my next breath." The hoarse declaration whispers against my lips a moment before he kisses me, the tenderness in the touch of his tongue caressing mine telling me more than his words. — Lisa Renee Jones

Words may be counterfeit, false coined, and current only from the tongue, without the mind; but passion is in the soul, and always speaks the heart. — Thomas Southerne

Each letter of the alphabet is a steadfast loyal soldier in a great army of words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories. One letter falls, and the entire language falters. — Vera Nazarian

Do me a favor," he whispers, curling my fingers over the back of his and bringing them to his mouth. "What?" His eyes never leave mine as he brushes his lips over my knuckles. "Dream of me tonight," he says softly. He watches me, waiting for a response. I have no words, so I simply nod. He doesn't need to know that no one else occupies my dreams. No one. "Dream of my lips, teasing you." Straightening one of my fingers, he kisses the tip. His voice is like velvet and his words are like an aphrodisiac. "Dream of my tongue, tasting you." His tongue sneaks out to flick the end of my finger. A surge of desire rocks my core. "And I'll dream of you. Of what it feels like to be inside your warm, wet body. — M. Leighton

Here, in this painting, in these (hopefully) creative meditations, you will see teh same sky and the same sun, the same story of struggle, of fall and grace, of descent and ascent, of death and resurrection. The same God. The same gifts. If He's not tired of it, why should I be? If His brush is still in His hand, if His words still roll, what can I do but stick my tongue out the cornder of my mouth and diligently (but pitifully) rip Him off? What can I do but meditate on His meditations? (xii) — N.D. Wilson

Yet I never sought what is real, yearned for the real, but rather I have yearned for dreams more than solid things. I can say I love the textures of dreams. The way they hover and almost taste. The clouds and darkness that linger behind, mostly unseen. And the palette of dreams. You can almost taste the colours, they seem as words on the tip of the tongue, unsayable as pomegranate seeds, unsayable as thick cream, the darkness of such a thick cream. This is why I am obsessed with dreams. They know what we cannot. Night after night they try and tell us the impossible. Dreams are secret and closed, and also contain everything, gushing, splayed open. Dream suitcases, carpetbags, hold-alls. They influence us secretly and they draw me to travel to nowhere, to beauty's passage, through halls of mirrors where I know I am not myself, I know I am sublime. — Shawna Lemay

I need Thee, O Lord, for a curb on my tongue; when I am tempted to making carping criticisms and cruel judgements, keep me from speaking barbed words that hurt, and in which I find perverted satisfaction. Keep me from unkind words and from unkind silences. Restrain my judgements. Make my criticisms kind, generous, and constructive. Make me sweet inside, that I may be gentle with other people, gentle in the things I say, kind in what I do. Create in me that warmth of mercy that shall enable others to find Thy strength for their weakness, Thy peace for their strife, Thy joy for their sorrow, Thy love for their hatred, Thy compassion for their weakness. In thine own strong name, I pray. Amen. — Peter Marshall

Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain - the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed - then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood. — Vladimir Nabokov

May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense - three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies - continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus. - May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour." - For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course. — Arthur Schopenhauer

All the children in the world, when they go to school, have the right to study in their mother tongue. But we go to school and run into literary Arabic as children. It sounds like a foreign language. The words for "house" or "table" or "lamp" are not the same as the words we use at home, and most of the other words are alien to children at school. Classical Arabic is one of the prisons of the Arab world. — Hassan Blasim

Syrian monk, Isaac of Niniveh: Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence. ... Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself. ... More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this "something" that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence ... after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence. — Thomas Merton

Choking back emotion, I turned my eyes to the ground. "I don't want to say good-bye."
"Then don't."

If only it could be true. I blinked hard, but two tears escaped, anyway. I kept my face down so he wouldn't see. "Then what do we say, Yahn?"

He set his hand beneath my chin and gently turned my face forward. His eyes were warm and sad and beautiful.

"We say egogahan," he whispered, wiping the tears from my cheeks. "In our tongue , it means, 'until we meet again.'"

I know I shouldn't, but the words tumbled out in a trembling murmur. "And will we?"

A small smile brightened his face. "Perhaps, Maggie Davis. Perhaps. — Renee Collins

He kept trying to come up with words to say, but his brain and mouth were having a disconnect. So he crashed his mouth down over hers. She made a little gasp noise, and he took advantage, deepening the kiss, taking her stolen breath in and letting himself get lost in the feel of her soft lips, the familiar taste of her tongue.
He was half tempted to take her right here in the back of the truck, despite all the people nearby
the horse trailer mostly hid them, after all.
There was a small whispering in the back of his mind that they were gonna make a mess of things, but with her draping her legs across his lap and her nails running over his back, he couldn't help thinking that
Well, actually it was more like he couldn't actually think at all. — Cindi Madsen

Every sentence I could think of has already been said a hundred times over, by people whose words come out perfect and beautifully formed, where mine die on the tongue or straggle out onto the page, mangled and imperfect. But my story isn't perfect, because I'm not perfect. Nothing is perfect except maybe in math, in the line that extends forever in both directions. Math is beautiful, I have always known that, but so is life. And I have grown to accept imperfection. — Aubrey Rose

They might be talking in perfect latin tongue and without warning begin to talk in perfect anglo tongue and keep it up like that, alternating between a thing that believes itself to be perfect and a thing that believes itself to be perfect, morphing back and forth between two beasts until out of carelessness or clear intent they suddenly stop switching tongues and start speaking that other one. In it brims nostalgia for the land they left or never knew when they use the words with which they name objects; while actions are alluded to with an anglo verb conjugated latin-style, pinning on a sonorous tail from back there. Using in one tongue the word for a thing in the other makes the attributes of both resound: if you say Give me fire when they say Give me a light, what is not to be learned about fire, light and the act of giving? It's not another way of saying things: these are new things — Yuri Herrera

Words cannot only be made ... But made to have a meaning, free the tongue and continue your speech. — Michael Bassey Johnson

He liked words and images. "Blue" was one of his favorite words. He liked the feeling it made on his lips and tongue when he said it. — Robert James Waller

Unaware of them all, Temujin began to chant words he had not heard since old Chagatai had whispered them on a frozen night long before. The shaman's chant spoke of loss and revenge, of winter, ice, and blood. He did not have to struggle to recall the words; they were ready on his tongue as if he had always known them. — Conn Iggulden

The most powerful and courageous heroes I know are those who bite their tongues when justification, validation, temptation, or vengeance would have them strike with truthful, hurtful words. — Richelle E. Goodrich

He laid his hands on her head, pushing back the hood. He began to speak. His voice was soft, and the words were in no tongue she had ever heard. The sound of them came into her heart like rain falling. She grew still to listen. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Kids are tough sometimes. There are moments when I'm so frustrated and don't feel like we understand each other. When I hit a moment like this and words of aggravation are on the tip of my tongue, this is what I say to myself:
You have been given the unbelievable honor of taking care of and loving the next generation of people. Your work with them is hands down the most important work you'll ever do. Think about how many people these children will come in contact with in their life time. The messages and love you give them or don't give them will be your voice in the future. Think about that when you're aggravated or tired. Every word you speak over them matters. Your voice and the unspoken energy you're sending them are more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Speak to them as if they are Kings and Queens and you are on stage in front of thousands of people -because that's how they deserve to be treated.
Give them the best of you. — Brooke Hampton

Love is the astrolabe of God's mysteries.
A lover may be drawn to this love or that love,
but finally he is drawn to the Sovereign of Love.
However much we describe and explain love,
when we fall in love we are ashamed of our words.
Explanation by the tongue makes most things clear,
but love unexplained is clearer.
When the pen came to the subject of love, it broke.
When the discourse reached the topic of love,
the pen split and the paper tore.
If intellect tries to explain it,
it falls helpless as a donkey on a muddy trail;
only Love itself can explain love and lovers!
The proof of the sun is the sun itself.
If you wish to see it, don't turn away from it. — Rumi

I'm mesmerized by the way his fingers move confidently along her skin, as though her body is his to reat and touch and tend to. She was mine before she was yours: The words are there, unexpectedly, surging from my throat to my tongue. I swallow them back. — Lauren Oliver

I've been wanting to kiss ye since the first moment I saw ye," he said. "I'm going to do it now."
Sybil could not breathe, let alone form the words to object. When she moistened her lips with her tongue, she felt his heartbeat leap beneath her palm. Her gaze fixed on his mouth as he drew her to him ever so slowly.
She had expected a sweet, teasing kiss, not this explosion of passion that seared through her body at the first touch of their lips. No one had ever kissed her like this before, as if he would die if he could not have his mouth on hers. With a will of their own, her arms wound around his neck and her fingers tangled in his long, thick hair as she pulled him closer.
She was lost in the sensations and long past thought. As his kisses slowly changed from feverish to tender, she felt as if she were floating. She wanted this to go on forever.
When Rory pulled away, she stared up at him, stunned.
"That was promising," he said with a wide grin. — Margaret Mallory

He slipped his tongue between her lips and thrust it wantonly inside her mouth over and over, echoing the enticing move of his hips against hers. She clutched him closer, reveling in the feel of him, and the fact that she'd made him moan for her, whisper her name over and over, beg her without words for more. To kiss him more. To touch him more. — Karen Hawkins

arse' is a traditional usage - nothing to be ashamed of." The Baron nodded. "It has a commendable grown-up sharpness to it. 'Ass,' on the other hand, is quite frankly for spinsters and little children." Tiffany turned the words on her tongue for a moment and said, "Yes, sir. I think that is probably the long and the short of it. — Terry Pratchett