Quotes & Sayings About Use Of Words

Language and words for psychopaths are only word deep; there is no emotional colouring behind it. A psychopath can use a word like, 'I love you' but it means nothing more to him than if he said, 'I'll have a cup of coffee.' — Robert D. Hare

...his condition in Roanoke is a strong testament that lassitude, indifference and the peculiarities of his thought were primarily the consequences of his illness and not of the early attempts to treat it.

The popular view that anti-psychotics were chemical straight jackets that suppressed clear thinking and voluntary activity seems not to be borne out in Nash's case.

If anything, the only periods when he was relatively free of hallucinations, delusions and the erosion of will were the periods following either insulin treatment or the use of anti psychotics.

In other words, rather than reducing Nash to a zombie, medication seemed to reduce zombie like behavior. — Sylvia Nasar

I think strong rhetoric and strong action are two separate things. Anyone can use tough words. Anyone can go over the top and say things that sound strong. But sounding strong is not enough. You have to know exactly how you're going to do it. And if you look at some of the policies he's talked about, they would not make America stronger. — Marco Rubio

European languages and a Google app can now turn your words into a foreign language, either in text form or as an electronic voice. Skype, an internet-telephony service, said recently that it would offer much the same (in English and Spanish only). But claims that such technological marvels will spell the end of old-fashioned translation businesses are premature. Software can give the gist of a foreign tongue, but for business use (if executives are sensible), rough is not enough. And polyglot programs are a pinprick in a vast industry. The business of translation, interpreting and software localisation (revising websites, apps and the like for use in a foreign language) generates revenues of $37 billion a year, reckons Common Sense Advisory (CSA), a consulting firm. — Anonymous

The Internet has spawned an abusive malevolent platform that cyber stalkers and trolls can use to harm people in the real world and ruin their victims lives forever with their permanent posts. Cyberspace can also be used to hunt those that prey on innocent people, so that those who live by the malicious words may also feel the repugnant feeling of being stalked and hunted even in their own false sense of anonymity. — Don A. Holbrook

One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words. We use words as tools. We forget that words are a repository of the spirit. The tragedy of our times is that the vessels of the spirit are broken. We cannot approach the spirit unless we repair the vessels. Reverence for words - an awareness of the wonder of words, of the mystery of words - is an essential prerequisite for prayer. By the word of God the world was created. — Abraham Joshua Heschel

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

With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it's essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact that language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. I realize it may seem obvious, but it's surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted. — Francine Prose

I find my vocabulary is quite a lot better when I'm hungover. I feel like I unlock a key of words that I don't usually use in day-to-day life. — Ella Eyre

Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used. — Blaise Pascal

The residents of the the town are attracted by the words and the pictures on the signs. They know full well the perils posed by overpopulation. Many of them have mastered the use of several types of contraceptives. Now they understand the dangers posed by traffic accidents. They know that even though overpopulation is perilous, the living must do their best to have a good time and avoid being killed in traffic accident. — Yu Hua

Poor one, Estella." "What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any." "Estella," said I, "do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is looking over here at us." "Why should I look at him?" returned Estella, with her eyes on me instead. "What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,
to use your words,
that I need look at?" "Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you," said I. "For he has been hovering about you all night." "Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Estella, with — Charles Dickens

I don't change the language for children books. I don't make the language simpler. I use words that they might have to look up in the dictionary. The books are shorter, but there's just not that much difference other than that to be honest. And the funny thing is, I have adult writer friends [to whom I would say], "Would you think of writing a children's book?" and they go, "No, God, I wouldn't know how." They're quite intimidated by the concept of it. And when I say to children's books writers, would they write an adult book, they say no because they think they're too good for it. — John Boyne

Words are one of the most powerful things given to human beings. In the hands of artists who can use them properly they are like weapons of mass construction. — Eric T. Benoit

The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God's name would you want to make things words by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use? — Stephen King

Why would anybody be intimidated by mere words? I mean, neither I nor any other athiest that I know ever threatens violence. We never threaten to fly planes into skyscrapers. We never threaten suicide bombs. We are very gentle people. All we do is use words to talk about things like the cosmos, the origin of the universe, evolution, the origin of life. What's there to be frightened of? It's just an opinion. — Richard Dawkins

Writers who hedge their use of unfamiliar, infrequent, or informal words with 'I know that's not a real word,' hoping to distance themselves from criticism, run the risk of creating doubt where perhaps none would have naturally arisen. — Erin McKean

With each impact you tell me that my body belongs to you; that I am
yours to use, yours to punish and yours to screw. Your words are almost as
powerful as your hand. They leave me feeling breathless and desperate for
your cock. You are working me into the usual frenzy of slutty desire that
we have both come to love. If I was permitted I would tell you how much I
love you right now and how much I need this. But it's not my words which
are important at the moment. Instead I demonstrate my devotion to you in
my complete submission to your desire. — Felicity Brandon

As individuals, we also are apt to use the canon as a cannon. We invoke the stripling warriors of Helaman and the iron rod of Lehi's vision to ground our own version of unflinching obedience. Or we invoke the lessons of the Liahona to support our more spontaneous and flexible approach to gospel living. In America, some Mormons find Jesus' ministry to the downtrodden and King Benjamin's words about withholding judgment but not relief from the beggar to be apt endorsement of their preferred political policies. At the other end of the spectrum, some invoke the war in heaven fought over agency and consider the Mormon ethic of self-reliance to be adequate support for a different political outlook. Or, sometimes individuals even employ the cannon against the canon, citing inconsistencies and imperfections in the record as grounds for nonbelief in the principle of inspiration, one's faith tradition, or even God. — Terryl L. Givens

Affirmation statements are going beyond the reality of the present into the creation of the future through the words you use in the now. — Louise Hay

Have you noticed the words which Old Testament people use when someone important calls them by name? They don't say "What?" or "Yes?" They answer with the curious sentence, "Here I am". So much is in that sentence: readiness to respond, a willing servitude, an offering of oneself to the other. — Walter Wangerin Jr.

But I will say that living in Ireland has changed the cadence and fullness of speech, since the Irish love words and use as many of them in a sentence as possible. — Anne McCaffrey

In dealing with many words and different cultures every day, I have come to realize that the essence of life can be reduced to the magic of three sentences, in the order of their strength: "I apologize", "I love you", "Hi". The use and the meaning you replenish them with become the mirror of yourself, eventually of an entire humanity. (Soar) — Soar

But once an original book has been written-and no more than one or two appear in a century-men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language. — Pierre Boulle

Karna gave a mirthless smile and replied evenly,'What is the use of a competition if one cannot be compared with others? Talk is the weapon of the weak; release your arrows instead of hollow words. — Kavita Kane

Like most lit nerds, I'm a voracious reader. I never got enough poetry under my belt growing up but I do read it - some of my favorites, Gina Franco and Angela Shaw and Cornelius Eady and Kevin Young, remind me daily that unless the words sing and dance, what's the use of putting them down on paper. — Junot Diaz

Victor wrapped his fingers over my hand, pressing his face against my palm. "You're the bravest girl I've ever met. I'm so incredibly proud of you."
"Who knew that one day the word someone would use to describe me is brave. Life is very unpredictable." I chuckled.
"There are many other words I could think of to describe you but I'm not really good at flattery. — A.B. Whelan

Ah sir," replied Caderousse, "we cannot console those who will not be consoled, and he was one of these; besides, I know not why, but he seemed to dislike seeing me. One night, however, I heard his sobs, and I could not resist my desire to go up to him, but when I reached his door he was no longer weeping but praying.
I cannot now repeat to you, sir, all the eloquent words and imploring language he made use of; it was more than piety, it was more than grief, and I, who am no canter, and hate the Jesuits, said then to myself, 'It is really well, and I am very glad that I have not any children; for if I were a father and felt such excessive grief as the old man does, and did not find in my memory or heart all he is now saying, I should throw myself into the sea at once, for I could not bear it. — Alexandre Dumas

I wish they would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is coloured by "chlorophyll," which at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called "green leaf," we should see more precisely how far we had got. — John Ruskin

We decided to read our emails out loud to the group in order to share the warmth and optimism the messages contained. One of the most heartwarming was from the father of Petty Officer Rodney "RaRa" Young of Katy, Texas. His dad got right to the point: "You'd better come home because you promised to help me put up a fence, and I could really use that help." Everyone laughed because the words took us back to the normal world and out of the anxious monotony of our detention. — Shane Osborn

We all have a world of things inside ourselves and each one of us has his own private world. How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value that I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself, too. — Luigi Pirandello

My heart gave a weird little flutter. I'd been around Lexi for over a month, listening to her gush over boys, watching her point out the "gorgeous" ones. I understood human beauty now, and I'd even reached the point where I could nudge Lexi toward a cute guy, and she would agree that he was hot, but I still didn't get the fascination.
Maybe all the boy-watching had finally sunk in, because this stranger was, to use two of Lexi's favorite words, absolutely gorgeous. — Julie Kagawa

No critic and advocate of immutability has ever once managed properly or even marginally to outwit the English language's capacity for foxy and relentlessly slippery flexibility. For English is a language that simply cannot be fixed, not can its use ever be absolutely laid down. It changes constantly; it grows with an almost exponential joy. It evolves eternally; its words alter their senses and their meanings subtly, slowly, or speedily according to fashion and need. — Simon Winchester

When I was growing up, everyone around me was fond of fooling around with words. It was certainly common in my family, but I think it is typical of Bombay, and maybe of India, that there is a sense of play in the way people use language. — Salman Rushdie

I use colors that have already been experienced through the light of day and through the state of mind of the total man. In other words, my colors are not colors that are laboratory tools which are isolated from all accidentals or impurities so that they have a specified identity or purity. — Mark Rothko

Intelligence isn't just about how many levels of math courses you've taken, how fast you can solve an algorithm, or how many vocabulary words you know that are over 6 characters. It's about being able to approach a new problem, recognize its important components, and solve it - then take that knowledge gained and put it towards solving the next, more complex problem. It's about innovation and imagination, and about being able to put that to use to make the world a better place. This is the kind of intelligence that is valuable, and this is the type of intelligence we should be striving for and encouraging. — Andrea Kuszewsk

One of the greatest sermons ever pronounced on missionary work is this simple thought attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: 'Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.' Opportunities to do so are all around us. Do not miss them by waiting too long on the road to Damascus. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Society. Sins such as adultery, bribery, and betrayal are more like treason than like crime; they damage the social order. Social harmony can be rewoven only by slowly recommitting to relationships and rebuilding trust. The sins of arrogance and pride arise from a perverse desire for status and superiority. The only remedy for them is to humble oneself before others. In other words, people in earlier times inherited a vast moral vocabulary and set of moral tools, developed over centuries and handed down from generation to generation. This was a practical inheritance, like learning how to speak a certain language, which people could use to engage their own moral struggles. — David Brooks

What is the use of Christ's words, unless we set an example? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Word of God seems to be the only offensive weapon which you have in your spiritual armory. It is quite powerful, and in the words of Hebrews 4:12, "It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword" (NLT). You make use of this weapon when you speak God's Word to the Enemy concerning the situation you face. — Pedro Okoro

We use up words like spiritual so fast in this culture. Twenty years ago spiritual had a distinct meaning. But now there's a lot of jack-off thinkers who just love to talk about the spiritual. And there is a lot of bogus - is bogosity a word? It should be - a lot of bogosity in these spiritual seekers. So you have to find another way to express it. I just call it how I fit. — George Carlin

The sum of the knowable, that soil which the human spirit must till, lies between all the languages and independent of them, at their center. But man cannot approach this purely objective realm other than through his own modes of cognition and feeling, in other words: subjectively. Just where study and research touch the highest and deepest point, just there does the mechanical, logical use of reason - whatever in us can most easily be separated from our uniqueness as individual human beings - find itself at the end of its rope. From here on we need a process of inner perception and creation. And all that we can plainly know about this is its result, namely, that objective truth always rises from the entire energy of subjective individuality. — Wilhelm Von Humboldt

I could not have written this book the way I wanted to without the insight of one such friend, Brent Dempsey. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being so generous with your time and for helping me get it right. I solemnly swear to never again use the words stakeout or perp. — Julie James

I never use the words HUMANIST or HUMANITARIAN, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature. — Gregory Maguire

As an artist, I move along in my life, into whatever things I'm doing, and I hear things where it's like, "Oh, that'd be a great [song] title! I'll use that!" So I keep a running list of titles on my computer. I've got these words and phrases that just sustained my interest. So I'm a step ahead, really, with the titling! — Andy Summers

The power of prayer does not lie in the number or earnestness of the words you use, but in a living faith that God Himself accepts both you and your prayer into His loving heart. — Andrew Murray

I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like 'Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha,' then I run on, say to 'David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha' though I don't use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say the words 'equally a coming Buddha' I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes behind those glasses, when you think 'equally a coming Buddha' you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy's eyes. — Jack Kerouac

Never use a gallon of words to express a spoonful of thought. Our unadorned word should be enough. — John Stott

What conversations! What vulgarity and what dirt! And you have to associate with them, in the office, in the university, in the operating-theatre ... , in the world.
Ask them if they wouldn't mind stopping, and they laugh at you. Look annoyed, and they get worse. Leave them, and they continue.
This is the solution: first pray for them, and offer up some sacrifice; then face them like a man and make use of the 'strong language apostolate'. - The next time we meet I'll tell you - in a whisper - a few useful words. — Josemaria Escriva

truth is what happens when humans use words to reflect God's wise ordering of the world and so shine light into its dark corners, bringing judgment and mercy where it is badly needed. — N. T. Wright

I am so much more than the hint of rage you discern hiding behind my restraint. I am so much more than the words I use. I am bottled heartache and the lies I tell myself when everyone else is asleep. — Nessie Q.

There is much reading material that is available which is either time-wasting or corrupting. The best yardstick to use in discerning the worth of true knowledge and learning is to go first and foremost to the words of the Lord's prophets. — Ezra Taft Benson

If our words cannot enhance the peace
We should keep quiet and use our ears
The extent of our perception will increase
As we'll be less to blame for others' tears — Joan Marques

No ramifications whatsoever. You're not going to ramificate; you don't know what it means. You don't know which of the words I use are real words and which I'm making up — Sophie Hannah

Poetry is perhaps what teaches us to nurture the charming illusion: how to be reborn out of ourselves over and over again, and use words to construct a better world, a fictitious world that enables us to sign a pact for a permanent and comprehensive peace ... with life. — Mahmoud Darwish

No one should let yesterday use up too much of today. Easy to say, hard to live. — Andrea Hairston

Guard your tongue, and use it for good instead of evil. How many marriages or friendships have been destroyed because of criticism that spiraled out of control? How many relationships have broken down because of a word spoken thoughtlessly or in anger? A harsh word can't be taken back; no apology can fully repair its damage. — Billy Graham

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer. — Ben Kingsley

Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe. It is as if forces we can lay claim to in no other way, become present to us in sensuous form. The knowledge and use of this magic goes back very far: the rune; the chant; the incantation; the spell; the kenning; sacred words; forbidden words; the naming of the child, the plant, the insect, the ocean, the configuration of stars, the snow, the sensation in the body. The ritual telling of the dream. The physical reality of the human voice; of words gouged or incised in stone or wood, woven in silk or wool, painted on vellum, or traced in sand. — Adrienne Rich

As a society we've progressed to a point where it is unacceptable behavior to knock someone down who is acting a fool. I teach my children to use their words when faced with a conflict. That's what civilized people do. All that is fine and good except for one small thing; we've enabled the fools ...
... What if people could expect a measure of instant justice when they were out of order? The acts of thoughtlessness would decline exponentially. If you give people license to be fools then you are left to deal with fools. However, if you put fools on notice then they'll be forced to snap to attention and act right or suffer the consequences. Think of it as an adult spanking. — Aaron Blaylock

Alongside the success of much Church marketing, and in the midst of much of the psychologized faith in the evangelical world today, a profound secularization of faith has taken place, and this despite the continued use of good biblical words like sin, grace, Christ, and atonement. This secularization is appealing because it buys the appearance of success, but it also forfeits the nature of biblical faith. The seeds of a full-blown liberalism have now been sown, and in the next generation they will surely come to maturity. — David F. Wells

For all my love of words, I am afraid to use them at all. — Katherine Longshore

Privacy is a protection from the unreasonable use of state and corporate power. But that is, in a sense, a secondary thing. In the first instance, privacy is the statement in words of a simple understanding, which belongs to the instinctive world rather than the formal one, that some things are the province of those who experience them and not naturally open to the scrutiny of others: courtship and love, with their emotional nakedness; the simple moments of family life; the appalling rawness of grief. That the state and other systems are precluded from snooping on these things is important - it is a strong barrier between the formal world and the hearth, extended or not - but at root privacy is a simple understanding: not everything belongs to everyone. — Nick Harkaway

In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and frugality nothing will do, and with them everything. He that gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary expenses excepted), will certainly become rich, if that Being who governs the world, to whom all should look for a blessing on their honest endeavours, doth not, in his wise providence, otherwise determine. — Benjamin Franklin

Preach always. If necessary, use words. — Francis Of Assisi

I think the rules of our truce prohibit the use of words like 'squeeze.' That's an automatic foul. — Eve Jagger

Spiritual activity, education, civilization, culture, the idea are all vague, indefinite concepts, under the banner of which it is quite convenient to use words that have a still less clear meaning and therefore can easily be plugged into any theory. — Leo Tolstoy

One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called 'weasel words.' When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a 'weasel word' after another there is nothing left of the other. — Theodore Roosevelt

Identifying the flaw in the US philosophical roots requires that we move beyond the intellectual and emotional climate in which the Constitution was conceived and adopted. The meanings of concepts and words change with use, and even the Supreme Court has admitted that the original perspective of the American social contract has been altered by the passage of time. — David E. Wilkins

If something comes along that you don't like, there are a few sort of four-letter words that you can use to push it out of the sphere of discussion. If you were in a bar downtown, they might have different words, but if you're an educated person what you use are complicated words like "conspiracy theory" or "Marxist." It's a way of pushing unpleasant questions off the agenda so that we can continue in our own happy ideology. — Noam Chomsky

PU'RIST: one superstitiously nice in the use of words. — Samuel Johnson

Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality. — Douglas Adams

the difficulty of a sentence depends not just on its word count but on its geometry. Good writers often use very long sentences, and they garnish them with words that are, strictly speaking, needless. But they get away with it by arranging the words so that a reader can absorb them a phrase at a time, each phrase conveying a chunk of conceptual structure. — Steven Pinker

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

A local white bootlegger, idling under the store awning, accosted Major Stem. "Why'd you call that damned nigger woman 'Mrs. Shaw'?" he demanded. In those days, white Southerners did not use courtesy titles for their black neighbors. While it was permissible to call a favored black man "Uncle" or "Professor" - a mixture of affection and mockery - he must never hear the words "mister" or "sir." Black women were "girls" until they were old enough to be called "auntie," but they could never hear a white person, regardless of age, address them as "Mrs." or "Miss" or "Ma'am." But Major Stem made his own rules. — Timothy B. Tyson

Instead of the calendrical terms Monday, Tuesday and so forth, we cheerfully offer the following surrogates. Use them freely and often, for their use honors us all. For Sunday, please use Sunshine. For Monday. pleasy use Monty. For Tuesday, please use Toes. For Wednesday, please use Wetty. For Thursday, please use Thurby. For Friday, please use Fribs. For Saturday, please use Satto-gatto. — Mark Dunn

If we who self-designate ourselves with terms like "Catholic," "Orthodox," "Protestant," "Evangelical," "Charismatic," "Pentecostal" and others would fully surrender ourselves to The Holy Spirit, we could stop focusing on the secondary words we use to describe the primary experience of The Holy Spirit. — John David Geib

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

Wordy! I enjoy description - I like words, and words are the tools that writers use, just like paint is the tool that artists use. I think words are fun, and I have a lot of fun using them. I know that a lot of kids think my stories start very slowly, and I expect that's true. But that's the way I like to read stories, so when I'm writing them I can do what I want! I say that to kids in schools, and they are very generous - they say, That's true. You can do what you want. It's your story. — Natalie Babbitt

When you draw, you copy the world don't you? You remake it on paper, but it isn't the same. It's yours. No one else could have created it just like that. When I make poems, I use the words we all use, but the order and the sound create a new power. This wood is someone's creation. We stumble through it's tendrils, as if we're crawling through the synapses of his mind. — Catherine Fisher

He lifted the lavender soap to his hair, and she squeaked.
"You don't use that in your hair," she hissed, jolting from her perch to reach for one of the many
hair tonics lining the little shelf above the bath. "Rose, lemon verbena, or ... " She sniffed the glass
bottle. "Jasmine." She squinted down at him.
He was staring up at her, his green eyes full of the words he knew he didn't have to say. Do I look
like I care what you pick? — Sarah J. Maas

Some words we use all the time are difficult to define when we actually have to think about them. We use the word "evil" all the time but when asked to define what we are talking about, it can be quite difficult.

Think about evil as you would think of counterfeit currency. A counterfeit is the corruption of something real. You can have real currency without the existence of any counterfeits. You cannot, however, have counterfeits without the real thing existing first. Evil is dependent on the existence of goodness but goodness is not dependent on evil. Goodness was there first. It is an absolute. Evil must always be thought of in relationship with absolute goodness. — Jon Morrison

Veins practically popping out of his neck, the jerk leaned out his window and yelled a bunch of swear words, including a new one I tucked away in my brain for future use, if necessary. — James Patterson

Plain words on plain paper. Remember what Orwell says, that good prose is like a windowpane. Cut every page you write by at least a third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigorous way you can. Eat meat. Drink blood. Give up your social life and don't think you can have friends. Rise in the quiet hours of the night and prick your fingertips and use the blood for ink; that will cure you of persiflage! But do I take my own advice? Not a bit. Persiflage is my nom de guerre. (Don't use foreign expressions. It's elitist.) — Hilary Mantel

Questions that pertain to the foundations of mathematics, although treated by many in recent times, still lack a satisfactory solution. Ambiguity of language is philosophy's main source of problems. That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use. — Giuseppe Peano

Ma'am is yet another horrible-sounding word in the lexicon of words that women are stuck with to describe various aspects of their body/life/mental state/hair. Vagina. Moist. Fallopian tubes. Yeast infection. Clitoris. Frizz. These are all terrible words, and yet they are our assigned descriptors. Who made up these words? Women certainly didn't. If, at the beginning of time, right after making vaginas, God had asked me, 'What would you like your most intimate and enjoyable part of yourself to be called?',' I most certainly wouldn't have said, 'Vagina.' No woman would, because vagina sounds like a First World War term that was invented to describe a trench that has been mostly blown apart but is still in use. Even off the very top of my head I feel like I could have come up with something better, like for instance the word papoose, which actually as I'm typing it feels like an incredibly brilliant word for vagina. — Jessi Klein

Of course in the present situation the Communists have to use various disguises. Sometimes we hear words like "popular front," at other times "dialogue with Christianity." For Communists a dialogue with Christianity! In the Soviet Union this dialogue was a simple matter: they used machine guns and revolvers. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Ally." Peeta says the words slowly, tasting it. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancee. Target. Mutt. Neighbor. Hunter. Tribute. Ally. I'll add it to the list of words I use to try to figure you out. The problem is, I can't tell what's real anymore, and what's made up. — Suzanne Collins

I am glad that the country world ... retains a power to use our English tongue. It is a part of its sense of reality, of its vocabulary of definite terms, and of its habit of earthly common sense. I find this country writing an excellent corrective of the urban vocabulary of abstractions and of the emotion disguised as thinking which abstractions and humbug have loosed upon the world. May there always be such things as a door, a milk pail, and a loaf of bread, and words to do them honor. — Henry Beston

And tell him it's quite true that the best of the philosophers are of no use to their fellows; but that he should blame, not the philosophers, but those who fail to make use of them. — Plato

I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation. — F Scott Fitzgerald

I smiled back, the importance of manners, my mother always said, is inversely related to how inclined one is to use them, or, in other words, sometimes politeness is all that stands between oneself and madness. — Nicole Krauss

The words you use can influence your life. Positive words are well spring of life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I know that I do have influence over the people who watch me, and it's quite a pressure. I have to stay positive, and while I would never use the words 'role model', I am mindful of the responsibilities that come with a substantial viewership. — Zoe Sugg

And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are:
Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth. — Jane Yolen

A part of me still says, 'Maybe, Denzel, you're supposed to preach. Maybe you're still compromising.' I've had an opportunity to play great men and, through their words, to preach. I take what talent I've been given seriously, and I want to use it for good. — Denzel Washington

Talking of being eaten by dogs, there's a dachshund at Brinkley who when you first meet him will give you the impression that he plans to convert you into a light snack between his regular meals. Pay no attention. It's all eyewash. His belligerent attitude is simply - "
Sound and fury signifying nothing, sir?"
That's it. Pure swank. A few civil words, and he will be grappling you ... What's the expression I've heard you use?"
Grappling me to his soul with hoops of steel, sir?"
In the first two minutes. He wouldn't hurt a fly, but he has to put up a front because his name's Poppet. One can readily appreciate that when a dog hears himself addressed day in and day out as Poppet, he feels he must throw his weight about. Is self-respect demands it."
Precisely, sir."
You'll like Poppet. Nice dog. Wears his ears inside out. Why do dachshunds wear their ears inside out?"
I could not say, sir."
Nor me. I've often wondered. — P.G. Wodehouse

Any religion which uses the words such as hell, fire, curse, burning, amputating can never be a religion of love because a religion of love must only use the language of love, must only use only the sweet words of affection, not the words of darkness and torture! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

One of the most popular illustrations we use in Love and Respect Conferences compares women and men to pink and blue. The audience responds immediately when I talk about how she sees through pink sunglasses and hears with pink hearing aids, while he sees through blue sunglasses and hears with blue hearing aids. In other words, women and men are very different. Yet, when blue blends with pink, it becomes purple, God's color - the color of royalty. The way for pink and blue to blend is spelled out in Ephesians 5:33: "[Every husband] must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband" (NIV). Living out Ephesians 5:33 is the key to blending together as one to reflect the very image of God. — Emerson Eggerichs

You can use the power of words to bury meaning or to excavate it. — Rebecca Solnit