Words They Used Back Quotes & Sayings

I know. And I couldn't wait any longer, I have to tell you - "
The panic rises, and I grip the French band tighter. "Cricket, please -"
But his words pour forth in a torrent. "I can't stop thinking about you, and I'm not the guy I used to be, I've changed -"
"Cricket -" I look back up, feeling faint.
His blue eyes are bright. Sincere. Desperate. "Go out with me tonight. Tomorrow night, every ni -" The words cut off in his throat as he sees something behind me.
Cigarettes and spearmint. I want to die.
"This is Max. My boyfriend. Max, this is Cricket Bell. — Stephanie Perkins

He disowned me," I murmured. "Kicked me out and told me to come back when I changed my choice."
"He seriously used those words? That it was a choice?"
I nodded.
"You can't change it. Your sexuality is like your DNA. You can't cut off your finger so it's no longer there, because it is you. You're born with it - you just discover it when you mature. — Shaye Evans

I write, and I feel how the correct and precise use of words is sometimes like a remedy to an illness. Like a contraption for purifying the air, I breathe in and exhale the murkiness and manipulations of linguistic scoundrels and language rapists of all shades and colors. I write and I feel how the tenderness and intimacy I maintain with language, with its different layers, its eroticism and humor and soul, give me back the person I used to be, me, before my self became nationalized and confiscated by the conflict, by governments and armies, by despair and tragedy. — David Grossman

Debbie glanced at her cards. "Okay," she said, "Aleksander Koturovic was a Serbian biochemist and neurophysiologist before people used those words. He also did a lot of research into evolution and wrote a few papers on Neanderthal man and extinctions. He was the Walter Bishop of his time, and most of his ideas got him labeled as a quack." She gave a little smile as she flipped an index card to the back of the pile. "To be honest, half his ideas would still get him labeled as a quack. — Peter Clines

He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my head, and though he said he'd come back one day I know a broken promise from a right one for I have used them myself and there is no coming back. Minds like ours are can't be tamed and the price for freedom is the price we pay. — Charlotte Eriksson

For Hood's sake,' the foreigner muttered. 'What's wrong with words?' 'With words,' said Redmask, turning away, 'meanings change.' 'Well,' Anaster Toc said, following as Redmask made his way back to his army's camp,.. 'that is precisely the point. That's their value - their ability to adapt -' 'Grow corrupt, you mean. The Letheri are masters at corrupting words, their meanings. They call war peace, they call tyranny liberty. On which side of the shadow you stand decides a word's meaning. Words are the weapons used by those who see others with contempt. A contempt which only deepens when they how those others are deceived and made into fools because they choose to believe. Because in their naivety they thought the meaning of a word was fixed, immune to abuse. — Steven Erikson

I used to do miserably in English literature, which I thought was a sign of moral turpitude. As I look back on it, I think it was rather to my credit. The notion of actually putting writers' words into other words is quite ridiculous because why bother if writers mean what they mean, and if they don't, why read them? There is, I suppose, a case for studying literary works in depth, but I don't quite know what 'in depth' means unless you read a paragraph over and over again. — Patricia Wentworth

I used to think that other people defined the boundaries of life. Rushing in to impress others, and get them to like me gnawed at me in the back of my mind. Criticism came as a horrifying blade straight into my heart. Now I see that they were self-imposed limitations. While obstacles were always present the fundamental truth behind this epiphany is one words cannot even describe. I was my own propellant, and the moment I realized it my entire world changed. — Sai Marie Johnson

He shoved his hips against her, reminding her of what they had just done, and said, "I had never bedded a woman before you. I made that plain. Did you think I let you seduce me lightly? No, I did not. You made a deal with me the moment you gave me entry into your body."
"I made no such deal!" Her eyes were angry - and frightened - but he would not let her make him back down.
"Precious Isabel," he whispered. "You made a deal with your heart, your soul, and your body, and you sealed it with the wash of your climax on my c*ck."
She blinked, looking dazed. He'd never used such words before, especially not with her, but their bluntness was necessary. — Elizabeth Hoyt

Hurry up and go back and come over here quick, you cock suckers." . . .[Counsel for the claimants objected unsuccessfully to this language.] What Akipa meant to have them understand was that he had no fear of them; that he despised them. The Indians had no curse words, or oaths, and they used this expression to express their contempt. — Gary Clayton Anderson

Oh, I should add, I'm not looting the city, but the people I heal often bring me gifts. I've got a statue of a dog made of gold with bright ruby eyes that dates back two thousand years. I've got the best television set that Arucu Corporation made last year. And I've got a piece of slightly used butcher paper with a crayon drawing of something that might be me or might be a spider, I'm not sure which, with the words "THAK YOU DRRON GRAGON" written on it. And various other treasures. — Bard Bloom

Yeah, well don't get used to it," I mutter back. "I ain't no damn Hooters waitress." I catch his grin out of the corner of my eye. "You? A Hooters girl? I don't think you have big enough - " "Choose your next words carefully, Whitman," I cut him off mid-sentence, my eyes narrowed. "They could mean the world of difference on who keeps you company in bed tonight. Me or the palm sisters." "Feet. — Michelle Bryan

I listen to purely Christian Worship Music, Christian Rap etc. People will give me some old music, stuff I used to listen to back then and when I listen to the words, it blows me away. — Christian Hosoi

My mother looked at my dad and didn't know him. Didn't know where she was. Who she was. What was happening to her. There was this, like, permanent, creepy smile, cracked lips pulled back from bleeding gums, her teeth stained with blood. Sounds came out of her mouth, but they weren't words. The place in her brain that made words was packed with virus, and the virus didn't know language - it knew only how to make more of itself. And then my mother died in a fury of jerks and gargled screams, her uninvited guests rocketing out of every orifice, because she was done, they'd used her up, time to turn off the lights and find a new home. — Rick Yancey

One guy that really inspired me was Michael Jordan. I wouldn't say that he inspired me as a sportsman, but I love going back and watching videos of him, especially how he conducts himself in interviews. He always seemed to be very careful about the words that he used and thought about everything differently to anybody else. — Matteo Manassero

Great individuals find a way to transform weakness into strength. It's a rather amazing and even touching feat. They took what should have held them back - what in fact might be holding you back right this very second - and used it to move forward. As it turns out, this is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles became fuel for the blaze that was their ambition. Nothing could stop them, they were (and continue to be) impossible to discourage or contain. Every impediment only served to make the inferno within them burn with greater ferocity. These were people who flipped their obstacles upside down. Who lived the words of Marcus Aurelius and followed a group which Cicero called the only "real philosophers" - the ancient Stoics - even if they'd never read them. They had the ability to see obstacles for what they were, the ingenuity to tackle them, and the will to endure a world mostly beyond their comprehension and control. — Ryan Holiday

The actual words I used," I said, "were that I followed strict rules to make sure I didn't do anything wrong. It seems like you'd be pretty happy about that, but instead you're yelling at me. This is why I need therapy."
"'Happy' is not a son who has to follow rules to keep himself from killing people," she shot back. "'Happy' is not a psychologist telling me that my son is a sociopath. 'Happy' is - "
"He said I was a sociopath?" That was kind of cool. I'd always suspected, but it was nice to have an official diagnosis. — Dan Wells

I'm excited about going back to 'Today,' but, at odd moments, I'll grit my teeth in anxiety. I feel like a student before the start of school. I've got my new shoes and my book bag, but I'm not sure I'll remember how to do trigonometry. During my maternity leave, I haven't used many words of more than one syllable. — Jane Pauley

When philosophers use a word
"knowledge," "being," "object," "I," "proposition," "name"
and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

There are words in my life that I wish I'd never said. I wish I'd never told my wife that I loved her, because then I had to line up all my actions with those words. I had to always act like that was true. And those three words, I love you, should never be used if you don't mean them. My lying has meant I will never get to use them on anyone else. I went against my own truth, my own heart, and there is really no coming back from that. — Helen Humphreys

But as much as this is a soldier's reason d'etre, it is not often that you hear a soldier explicitly talk about 'killing'. The k-word as a verb is instead often disguised and supplanted by any number of other euphemisms. In precise and technical military parlance, reflecting the ever more precise and technically removed means of killing, the 'enemy' becomes the 'target'. But for the soldiers who personally 'engage' these 'targets', these objects are colloquially 'slotted', 'dropped', 'hit', 'fragged', 'sawn in half', 'smashed' or just plain 'shot'.
Then the soldier will have achieved the noun of a 'kill'.
The author's supposition is that such words are used by the soldier in combat as an attempt to mentally dissociate himself from the reality of his actions, so he can continue to operate as a soldier - and perhaps, when all is finally said and done, as a human being back home. — Jake Wood

It's all right. You can be angry." D slid toward the wall and leaned his head against it, his demeanor reverting back to what she was used to - hard and detached. "I wish I could say the words you want to hear. I really do. But that's not who I am. I . . ." He slowly met her eyes. "I can't lie to you. — Elle Kennedy

It was said that the winds would carry into the Beyond and the Departed used them to send messages back to the Faithful, some of whom would stand for hours on hillsides straining for words of wisdom or comfort from lost loved ones. — Anthony Ryan

If you say, "Woo, woo, woo!" to me, I'll say it back. I love it. "Woo, woo, woo" is something that my character used to say. It's something that my mother used to say to my brother and me when we were kids. When words would fail her, she'd just go, "Oh, woo, woo, woo." It's compassion. It's a combination of "I see you, I feel you, I acknowledge you, I got your back." — Kim Coles

Try telling the boy who's just had his girlfriend's name
cut into his arm that there's slippage between the signifier
and the signified. Or better yet explain to the girl
who watched in the mirror as the tattoo artist stitched
the word for her father's name (on earth as in heaven)
across her back that words aren't made of flesh and blood,
that they don't bite the skin. Language is the animal
we've trained to pick up the scent of meaning. It's why
when the boy hears his father yelling at the door
he sends the dog that he's kept hungry, that he's kicked,
then loved, to attack the man, to show him that every word
has a consequence, that language, when used right, hurts. — Todd Davis

To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect. — Thucydides

The magic in these Masonic rituals is very, very old. And way back in those days, it worked. As time went on, and it started being used for spectacle, to consolidate what were only secular appearances of power, it began to lose its zip. But the words, moves, and machinery have been more or less faithfully carried down over the millennia, through the grim rationalizing of the World, and so the magic is still there, though latent, needing only to touch the right sensitive head to reassert itself. — Thomas Pynchon

Emma knew what was going to happen if she didn't break away, and she used every shred of her willpower to turn from Steven and run through the daisies, her arms outspread. She'd gone only a few yards when she stumbled over something and went sprawling. She was laughing when she rolled over and started to sit up, and her plump breasts strained against her bodice. Before she could begin the arduous process of untangling herself from her skirts and struggling back to her feet, Steven was kneeling beside her on the ground. He reached out slowly to touch her braid. "God in heaven, but you're beautiful," he rasped, and it was as though he begrudged the words. "Who are you, Emma? Where did you come from?" She — Linda Lael Miller

No need to mince words. And you don't need to force yourself to like me. No one likes me now. It's only to be expected. I don't even like myself much. I used to have a few really good friends. You were one of them. But at a certain stage in life I lost them. Like how Shiro at a certain point lost that special spark. ... But you can't go back. Can't return an item you've already opened. You just have to make do. — Haruki Murakami

I loved your eyes first," I told him , repeating his words from a few weeks ago back to him, because it was true, and because we were two halves of a whole - we had been all along, and he'd been so clever to know it right away. I used to think it was insanity, but now I was beginning to think that it was pure brilliance. "I see it, too, James. I see the other half of my soul in you. — R.K. Lilley

Absence of that knowledge has rendered us a nation of wary label-readers, oddly uneasy in our obligate relationship with the things we eat ... Our words for unhealthy contamination
"soiled" or "dirty"
suggest that if we really knew the number-one ingredient of a garden, we'd all head straight into therapy. I used to take my children's friends out to the garden to warm them up to the idea of eating vegetables, but this strategy sometimes backfired: they'd back away slowly saying, "Oh man, those things touched dirt!" Adults do the same by pretending it all comes from the clean, well-lighted grocery store. We're like petulant teenagers rejecting our mother. We know we came out of her, but ee-ew. — Barbara Kingsolver

When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they're talking to us. When I was figuring out how to perform solo, I wanted to move back and forth between bass riffs, melody, and harmony, so I often used sounds instead of - or alongside - the words of a song. I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them. — Bobby McFerrin

We are so used to releasing words, we don't know what to do with them if they stay. No matter how many times we let them go, they come back. The words that matter always stay. — David Levithan

There's always that song that brings you back to the past. That makes you pause in the middle of what you're doing just so you could hear it clearly. The words bringing you back to a time that seemed nearly impossible, the words making you think for one moment that time itself has actually stopped. And there's nothing but you & perfect melody that brings you one step closer to what used to be. — Kira Jeffries

You're used to city noise and the sounds that come from being in such a crowded place covering up what you don't want people to hear. In the great wide open, there isn't anything to hide behind and all sound carries. You get used to saying what you mean out here and you learn real quick that words are permanent. You can try and take them back but they always linger." "I'll — Jay Crownover

And you're not the kind of girl I want."
Surely he couldn't mean the fact that I was Mexican. From what I knew of Hardy, there wasn't a bit of prejudice in him. He never used racist words, never looked down on someone for things they couldn't help.
"What kind do you want?" I asked with difficulty.
"Someone I can leave without looking back. — Lisa Kleypas

When I was 16, I used to drive huge loads of laundry in a three ton truck. I would turn round at night to drive back and see the band in a place north of Toronto called Dunn's Pavilion. I would drive that truck all day and they drive back and all the way until one day I wrecked the truck. I fell asleep and wrecked it. I was OK and so was my helper. I called my dad and the first words out of his mouth were, "are you OK?" I was really lucky I had a kind father. — Gordon Lightfoot

Popular women use positive, optimistic language in their online profiles, not buzzwords like "future thinker". Here are the ten most often used words I found: easy-going, love, laugh, laid-back, optimistic, outgoing, fun, down-to-earth, pleasure, adventure. — Amy Webb

Is Jensen really your name?" she asked when he sat down again, closing the knife and tucking it back into his pocket.
"Does it matter? I've used any number of names. Jensen, Davidson, Wilson, Madsen."
"In other words your mother didn't know who your father was. — Anne Stuart

Fink had a full bowl and grinned at me as he sat back on the bench. "It would help if you used words like 'please' and 'thank you.'"
"Then I'll thank you to please stay out of my business. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

Sonja used to say that Ove was "unforgiving." For instance, he refused to go back to the local bakery eight years after they gave him the wrong change when he bought pastries once at the end of the 1990s. Ove called it "having firm principles." They were never quite in agreement when it came to words and their meanings.
p. 239 — Fredrik Backman

Around a child, people come and go, objects appear and are taken away, surroundings take shape and disintegrate. And no explanation is given, because how can you explain the world to a child?
So she had used the words. Words call forth and secure that which has gone away. With her lists she had ensured that whatever she had once known would come back — Peter Hoeg

He frowned back. He wasn't a charity case. Nor was he a man whose mind was easily changed. Redheaded librarians who used big words didn't scare him. — Becky Wade

adolescent who expresses dissident opinion more or less vocally can end up in a place like that. Some of the children arrive there from orphanages. If a child tries to run away from an orphanage, it is considered normal in our country to commit him to a psychiatric facility and treat him with the strongest of sedatives, such as aminazine, used to suppress Soviet dissidents back in the 1970s. This is particularly shocking considering these institutions' general punitive trend and the absence of psychological help as such. All communication there is based on fear and the children's forced subjugation. They become exponentially more cruel as a result. Many of the children are illiterate, but no one makes an effort to do anything about that. On the contrary, they do everything to quash the last remnants of any motivation to grow. The children shut down and stop trusting words. I — Masha Gessen

And again there are no words.
Words exist that can, used by a poet, achieve a dim monochrome of the body's love, but beyond that they fail clumsily.
My love flowed out to her, hers back to me. Mine stroked and soothed. Hers caressed. The distance - and the difference - between us dwindled and vanished. We could meet, mingle, and blend. Neither one of us existed any more; for a time there was a single being that was both. There was escape from the solitary cell; a brief symbiosis, sharing all the word ... — John Wyndham

I made decaf," he said. "Caffeine isn't good for you."
"Thank you, Mama Lane."
He made a face at her. "Tate and I used to share everything. Let him go off in a snit. I'll share his baby. If he doesn't come back, I'll appropriate it, and you."
"That's one area where all your commando skills will fail, dear man," she said affectionately. "I like you very much, and you can be baby's godfather. But I'm raising this child myself."
"Godfather." He was savoring the word when the toast popped up.
"Bad choice of words," she murmured. "I wouldn't want to give you any bad ideas. I don't want my child outfitted in a fedora and a machine gun."
"Commando godfathers are a different breed."
"Black bags and camo gear aren't much better," she informed him.
"Spoilsport. Where's your sense of adventure?"
"Hanging in the shower trying to dry out. — Diana Palmer