Best Written Word Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.”

Writing Two Written Familiar New Things Engaging Writers And Writing Written Word Writing By Writers Writers Reading Inspiration To Write Writing From Famous Authors Familiar Things

Author:William Makepeace Thackeray

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Source: Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist

“I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.”

Writing I Can Work Writers And Writing Written Word Writing By Writers Great Writing Paperwork

Author:Peter De Vries

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”

Source: The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: Volume VIII. A Supplement of New Letters

“I was learning book-keeping at the age of 12, but it never stopped me from pursuing literature. Over the years, I grew to love the written word.”

Years Book Age Literature Written Grew Written Word

Author:Ashwin Sanghi

“My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.”

Feels Writing Trying Written Achieve Tasks Power Of Words Fiction Writers Written Word Short Writing

Author:Joseph Conrad

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

“The written word, obviously, is very inward, and when we're reading, we're thinking. It's a sort of spiritual, meditative activity. When we're looking at visual objects, I think our eyes are obviously directed outward, so there's not as much reflective time. And it's the reflectiveness and the spiritual inwardness about reading that appeals to me.”

Thinking Eye Spiritual Reading Meditation Written Objects Activity Appeals Visuals Inward Written Word

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.”

Ifs Feels Trying Asks Written Achieve Succeed Demand Tasks Encouragement Forgotten Desert Charm Glimpse Consolation Written Word

Author:Joseph Conrad

“Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone.”

Want Stills Dies Courses Grows Roles Written Media Havens Tvs Stones Screens Primaries Written Word Masons Headstone Hitchhiking

Author:Douglas Adams

“They think written words are even more powerful,’ whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers.”

Thinking Writing Powerful Worry Written Magic Blue Lawyer Written Word Toads Magic Words

Author:Terry Pratchett

“How fast the ears learned to tell what sounds meant, much faster than it took the eyes to decipher written words.”

Eye Sound Written Ears Faster Written Word Decipher

Book:Inkdeath

Source: Inkdeath

“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.”

Want Writing Satisfaction Finished Perceive Articles Writers And Writing Written Word Writing By Writers Writing Words

Book:Mark Twain's notebook

Source: Mark Twain's notebook

“The reader's ear must adjust down from loud life to the subtle, imaginary sounds of the written word. An ordinary reader picking up a book can't yet hear a thing; it will take half an hour to pick up the writing's modulations, its ups and downs and louds and softs.”

Writing Book Sound Hours Half Written Reader Ordinary Picks Ears Loud Subtle Imaginary Ups & Downs Written Word

Author:Annie Dillard

“Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.”

States Written Police Esteem These Days Irony Written Word Police State

Book:If on a winter's night a traveler

Source: If on a winter's night a traveler

“The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses—the imagination’s vision, & the imagination’s hearing—& the moral sense, & the intellect. This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks & exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.”

People Ifs Writing Next Literature Imagination Moral Vision Written Blood Rocks Band Weak Dancing Mere Hearing Intellect Smell Senses Appeals Good Writing Written Word

Author:Annie Dillard

“The spoken word is nothing. It hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal. - Balbulus”

Written Eternal Insects Written Word Spoken Word

Book:Inkspell

Source: Inkspell

“My wife loves written words ... you know, words that stick to parchment and paper like dead flies, and it seems my father felt the same - but I want to hear words! Remember that when you are looking for the right words: You must ask yourself what they SOUND like! Glowing with passion, dark with sorrow, sweet with love, that's what I want. - Cosimo”

Knows Want Seems Remember Passion Asks Father Felt Sound Dark Wife Written Sweet Sorrow Paper Sticks My Wife Glowing Written Word Right Words Wives Love

Author:Cornelia Funke

“But I have long loved the written word, and come to see in it the power of the sleeping lion. This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here. In the absence of an audience, I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast with lungs breathing and heart beating.”

Writing Heart Long Stories Names Waiting Sleep Audience Written Absence Who I Am Breathing Beast Lions Lungs Written Word Restful Heart Beating

Book:The Book of Negroes

Source: The Book of Negroes

“She drinks pints of coffee and writes little observations and ideas for stories with her best fountain pen on the linen-white pages of expensive notebooks. Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery.”

Ifs Writing Believe Littles Ideas Sometimes Stories White Wonder Written Drink Pages Coffee Observation Expensive Pens Fountain Notebook Written Word Fetish Pints Linen Fountain Pens Stationery

Book:One Day

Source: One Day

“We are a culture that relies on technology over community, a society in which spoken and written words are cheap, easy to come by, and excessive. Our culture says anything goes; fear of God is almost unheard of. We are slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry.”

Culture Speak Easy Community Technology Written Angry Rely Say Anything Written Word Unheard Anything Goes

Book:The Francis Chan Collection: Crazy Love, Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Multiply

Source: The Francis Chan Collection: Crazy Love, Forgotten God, Erasing Hell, and Multiply

“The written word may be man's greatest invention. It allows us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn.”

Men May Written Invention Absent Unborn Converses Written Word

Author:Abraham Lincoln

“Sometimes, when it is going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationary.”

Ifs Believe Sometimes Wonder Written Written Word Fetish Stationary

Author:David Nicholls

“What a strange world it is, where prisoners are left their weapons and the written word is a mortal danger.”

World Left Written Danger Strange Weapons Mortals Prisoner Written Word Strange World

Book:A Conspiracy of Kings

Source: A Conspiracy of Kings

“Too often we take notes on writing, we think about writing but never do it. I want you to walk into the heart of the storm, written words dripping off hair, eyelids, hanging from hands.”

Thinking Want Writing Heart Hands Walks Written Hair Notes Storm I Want You Written Word Dripping Eyelids

Book:Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir

Source: Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir

“It is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you, and I’m sure you understand why. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and that’s the end of it. But when bad news is written down, whether in a letter or a newspaper or on your arm in felt tip pen, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the bad news again and again.”

Ifs Feels Ends Felt Written Arms News Letters Newspapers Pens Receiving Again And Again Bad News Written Word

Author:Daniel Handler

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.”

Writing Pleasure Music Creativity Great Writers Writers And Writing Written Word Writing By Writers Great Writing Greatest Pleasures Creativity And Writing

Book:Truman Capote: Conversations

Source: Truman Capote: Conversations

“Acknowledgements With grateful thanks to the three least-appreciated and hardest-working proselytizers of the written word: independent bookstores, librarians, and teachers.”

Three Teacher Written Independent Grateful Hardest Thanks Appreciated Librarian Bookstores Written Word Acknowledgement Grateful Thanks Independent Bookstores

Author:Gail Carriger

“I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.”

“The written word endures, the spoken word disappears”

Written Endure Disappear Written Word Spoken Word

Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.”

“Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life. And so we readers walk, and dream, and imagine, in the city where imagination found its great home.”

Stories Home Dream Found Given Imagination Walks Cities Behinds Imagine Written Doors Reader London Ghost Substance Written Word Metropolis

Book:Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

Source: Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

“Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.”

World Rooms Written Hero Librarian Defenders Keepers Written Word

Author:Louise Penny

“The disciplined Christian will be very careful what sort of counsel he seeks from others. Counsel that contradicts the written Word is ungodly counsel. Blessed is the man that walketh not in that.”

Men Christian Written Blessed Careful Written Word

Book:Discipline: The Glad Surrender

Source: Discipline: The Glad Surrender

“That was the problem ... with trusting to the written word ... We were human, mortal and fallible. We forgot, we made errors, argued ambiguities, and twisted meanings to suit our own ends. And in doing so, mayhap we reshaped the gods themselves.”

Humans Made Ends Problem Written Errors Suits Mortals Twisted Ambiguity Written Word

Author:Jacqueline Carey

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

“I'm a poetry-skipper myself. I don't like to boast, but I have probably skipped more poetry than any other person of my age and weight in this country - make it any other two persons. This doesn't mean that I hate poetry. I don't feel that strongly about it. It only means that those who wish to communicate with me by means of the written word must do so in prose.”

Feels Mean Persons Two Country Age Poetry Hate Wish Written Weight I Hate Communicate Prose Boast Written Word Skipper

Author:Will Cuppy

“The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather. The Voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is free. 'The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.' The life is in the speaking words. God's word in the Bible can have power only because it corresponds to God's Word in the universe. It is the present Voice which makes the written word powerful. Otherwise it would lie locked in slumber within the covers of a book.”

“The past but lives in written words: a thousand ages were blank if books had not evoked their ghosts, and kept the pale unbodied shades to warn us from fleshless lips.”

Ifs Book War Age Past Written Thousand Lips Ghost Shade Pale Blank Written Word

Author:Francois Fenelon

“Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.”

“It seems inevitable that the magic of the written word will fade.”

Seems Written Magic Lovely Inevitable Fades Written Word

Author:Hugh Mackay

“Richard Burton had a tremendous passion for the English language, especially the spoken and written word”

Funny Passion Language Written Dumb English Language Written Word

Author:Frank Bough

“Every spoken word double-crosses us. The written word is the only tolerable form of communication, as it isn't a stone in a bridge between souls but a ray of light between stars.”

Soul Light Form Stars Written Communication Stones Crosses Philosophical Bridges Rays Written Word Spoken Word Tolerable Rays Of Light

Author:Fernando Pessoa

“He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink.”

Writing Use Language Subjects Ink Explaining Written Word Written Language Using Words Writing Words Cuttlefish

Author:John Ray

“Plato used the dialogue format because the exchange of views, the posing and answering of questions, showed that understanding is a living, dynamic process. He distrusted writing because the settled character of the written word makes it look as if truth can be fixed and made to stand still. It is worth remembering that this greatest advocate of the objective reality of truth also believed that our access to that truth was sustained in reasoned discussion.”

“I cannot write in English, because of the treacherous spelling. When I am reading, I only hear it and am unable to remember what the written word looks like.”

Writing Looks Remember Reading Written Spelling Written Word Treacherous

Book:The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

Source: The Ultimate Quotable Einstein

“Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.”

Writing Wells Reality Known Speech Well Known Foe Written Word

Author:Joseph Conrad

“I had learning disabilities, and I couldn't express myself in the written word.”

Written Disability Written Word Learning Disability

Author:Laura Linney

“All of my books are about researching. I do all the research and I give it to a writer who can put it in the written word better than I could.”

Giving Book Written Research Written Word

Author:Bill Wyman

“I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time.”

Long Play Literature Written Blind Lust Glorious Abandoned Long Ago Castles Written Word Forts Sandbox

Book:An Unnecessary Woman

Source: An Unnecessary Woman

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Written Word Quotes