Quotessence
Home / Topics / Written Word Quotes

Written Word Quotes

Browse 185 quotes about Written Word.

Related topics

WritingBookIfsThinkingKnowsReadingSpoken WordBelieveWriting By WritersReaderWayWorldWriters And WritingMenSpeakAgeGreat WritingHumansLanguageLiteratureMeanStillsStories

Written Word Quotes

“Don't believe in everything that is written. Not everything that is written is true”

WritingBookInspirationCreativityCreationBooksPaperImmortalityAuthorBook QuotesWriters On WritingWriting ProcessWriting LifeAuthor QuotesWriting AdviceBook LoversWriters QuotesWriters And WritingWriters LifeCreativity QuotesImagination QuotesWritten WordBook QuoteWriting PhilosophyThe Great Pearl Of WisdomWriting InspirationWriting TipsWriters On ThinkingWriting From The HeartBangambikiWriters BlockHow To WriteWriters InspirationWriting BooksWriters WorldHow To Write FictionWriting TipHow To Write A NovelWriters Quotes BooksHow To Write A BookImagination WritingWriting SecretsWriters LivesWriting From The SoulSuccess In WritingWriting SuccessWriting Success Quotes
Book:Pearls Of Eternity
Create image

“We don't normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology, which means that a literate person is someone whose thought processes are technologically mediated. We became cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers, and the consequences of that were profound. Before a culture adopts the use of writing, when its knowledge is transmitted exclusively through oral means, it can very easily revise its history. It's not intentional, but it is inevitable; throughout the world, bards and griots have adapted their material to their audiences and thus gradually adjusted the past to suit the needs of the present. The idea that accounts of the past shouldn't change is a product of literate cultures' reverence for the written word. Anthropologists will tell you that oral cultures understand the past differently; for them, their histories don't need to be accurate so much as they need to validate the community's understanding of itself. So it wouldn't be correct to say that their histories are unreliable; their histories do what they need to do. Right now each of us is a private oral culture. We rewrite our pasts to suit our needs and support the story we tell about ourselves. With our memories we are all guilty of a Whig interpretation of our personal histories, seeing our former selves as steps toward our glorious present selves.”

WritingPastHistoryInterpretationSpeakingWritten WordExhalationOral Tradition
Book:The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling
Create image

“Nonreaders rely almost exclusively upon their senses and tactile interactions to interpret their external environment whereas people who read are apt to rely upon their internal interpretation of other people’s written thoughts. Nonreaders tend to catalogue their life experiences and derive their values exclusively through their interaction with external stimuli.”

ThinkingReadersWritten WordThinking QuotesReaders And ReadingReading And ThinkingNon Readers
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
Create image

“The linear order of time then is only true during wakeful states, only during the OUT cycle of consciousness. But again, wakefulness is not a constant linear thing, it is constantly fluctuating even when most of us think that we are quite awake and alert. The only way for humanity to maintain any linear order within physical time at all, is to use external physical devices (like clocks) or to focus the attention and record changes (like in calendars) in the First World. In this way, we may keep track of the physical cycles like the shift of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the seasons. Indeed, the written word, and the keeping of historical records, are ways for the outer self, the conscious ego, to maintain a semblance of linear and stable order within time.”

TimeOrderEgoChaosWritten WordEgo Consciousness
Book:The Way of the Projectionist: Alchemy’s Secret Formula to Altered States and Breaking the Prison of the Flesh
Create image

“In the speech sound wave, one word runs into the next seamlessly; there are no little silences between spoken words the way there are white spaces between written words. We simply hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the end of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.”

WayLittlesEndsRunningNextSoundSpaceWhiteSilenceWrittenSpeechWaveBoundariesSilence IsDictionaryOne WordEntrySpace BetweenWritten WordSpoken WordWhite SpaceSound Waves
Book:The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
Create image

“There can be no more thrilling idea of intimacy that connecting with someone through the agency of the written word. Here we meet, on the page, naked and unadorned: shorn of class, race, gender, sexual identity, age and nationality. The reader I seek is a tautology, for he/she is simply exactly the person who wants to read what I have written...”

WantPersonsIdeasAgeRaceClassWrittenIdentityReaderPagesGenderNakedIntimacyAgencyConnectingThrillingNationalityWritten WordTautology
Author:Will Self
Create image

“When the first emperor wanted to unify the country, one of the major policies was to create one system of written signs. By force, brutal force, he eliminated all the other scripts. One script became the official script. All the others were banned. And those who used other scripts were punished severely. And then the meanings of all the characters, over the centuries, had to be kept uniform as a part of the political apparatus. So from the very beginning the written word was a powerful political tool.”

FirstsCountryCharacterWantedPoliticalUsedForcePowerfulWrittenCenturyPolicyMajorsToolsScriptsOfficialsBrutalUniformsEmperorBannedWritten Word
Author:Ha Jin
Create image

“This suspension of one's own reality, this being entirely alone in a strange city (at times I wondered if I had lost the power of speech) is an enriching state for a writer. Then the written word ... takes on an intensity of its own. Nothing gets exteriorized or dissipated; all is concentrated within.”

IfsStatesRealityLostCitiesWrittenStrangeTravelSpeechIntensityWritten WordSuspensionEnrichingPower Of Speech
Book:I Knew a Phoenix: Sketches for an Autobiography
Create image

“But a piece of paper can be a powerful presence. I have always had enormous respect for the written word and invariably find a letter more revealing than a face-to-face conversation. In a strange way I suspect I will get to know you better at a distance than I would if you had stayed at home.”

IfsKnowsWayHomeFacesPowerfulPiecesWrittenStrangeConversationPaperLettersDistanceEnormousSuspectsRevealingFace To FaceWritten Word
Book:A Woman of Independent Means
Create image

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

KnowsWritingCharacterHandsEvilLanguageKnow HowVirtueHonestyIntegrityStandingInnocentInnocenceGood And EvilPower Of WordsPowerlessCreative WritingDictionaryGood WritingGood WritersGreat WritersFiction WritersWritten WordGreat WritingRight WordsGood WordsGood Against EvilGood EvilWritten LanguageWriting WordsLanguage WordsPower Of LanguageLanguage And Power
Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne
Create image

“A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities, and the United States, in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.”

IfsMenDoeStatesNationsUnitedUnited StatesSubjectsCitizensHonorMoralityProtectStandardsConscienceRelationInjusticeInternationalEnlightenedGrossInternational RelationsWritten WordLiabilityHigh StandardsBreachUnwritten
Author:Grover Cleveland
Create image

“She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.”

GivingBookFeelingsLastsReadingLeftWaterWrittenFineDifficultySentencesDancerHollowFinishingBook ReadingWritten WordSwimmerIndigestion
Book:Tales of the wide Caribbean
Create image

“I don't belong to a church or political party or a group of any kind. I feel that Amnesty International is the most civilized organization in history. Its currency is the written word. Its weapon is the letter; that's why I am a member. I believe in its non-violence; I believe in its effectiveness. Its dignity and its sense of commitment. Its focus on individuals and the concentration and tenacity with which they defend those imprisoned for their ideas has earned it the cautious respect of repressive governments throughout the world.”

WorldFeelsBelieveKindIdeasGovernmentPoliticalIndividualI BelieveChurchPartyFocusViolenceWrittenGroupsMembersWeaponsCommitmentDignityLettersOrganizationPrisonInternationalI Believe InConcentrationCivilizedCurrencyPolitical PartiesEffectivenessCautiousTenacityNon ViolenceWritten WordAmnestyAmnesty International
Author:Sting
Create image