4 Word Quotes (page 36)
And once again I am I will not say alone, no, that's not like me, but, how shall I say, I don't know, restored to myself, no, I never left myself, free, yes, I don't know what that means but it's the word I mean to use, free to do what, to do nothing, to know, but what, the laws of the mind perhaps, of my mind, that for example water rises in proportion as it drowns you and that you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words...
Samuel Beckett
He felt Death reaching out to him. But all of a sudden there was something else, too: words. Words that relieved the pain, cooled his brow, and spoke of love, nothing but love... It was his daughter's voice, and the White Women withdrew their pale hands as if they had burned themselves on her love.
Cornelia Funke
I became one of those annoying people who always say Ciao! Only I was extra annoying, since I would always explain where the word ciao comes from. (If you must know, it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval Venetians as an intimate salutation: Sono il suo schiavo! Meaning: "I am your slave!") Just speaking these words made me feel sexy and happy. My divorce lawyer told me not to worry; she said she had one client (Korean by heritage) who, after a yucky divorce, legally changed her...
Elizabeth Gilbert
At last Paul went on. "I know how it is, son. You won't do it, you haven't the nerve for it-you're soft." He waited, while those cruel words sank in. "Yes, that's the word, soft. You've always had everything you wanted- you've had it handed to you on a silver tray, and it's made you a weakling. You have a good heart, you know what's right, but you couldn't bear to act, you'd be too afraid of hurting somebody.
Upton Sinclair
I would love to teach every kid to say "fuck." Hang on, now, hang on, listen to why. The reason is because to me, that is a word that doesn't have any effect. But "stupid" and "dummy"? You can say it to someone who is six and you can say it to someone who is a hundred and six and they will hunch their shoulders and it will be like somebody kicked them in the stomach because they are harsh, ugly words.
Whoopi Goldberg
of all the weapons of destruction that man could invent, the most terrible-and the most powerful-was the word. Daggers and spears left traces of blood; arrows could be seen at a distance. Poisons were detected in the end and avoided. But the word managed to destroy without leaving clues.
Paulo Coelho
O, but they say, the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony: where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain: for they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. he, that no more must say, is listened more than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze; more are men's ends marked, than their lives before: the setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last; writ in rememberance more than things long past
William Shakespeare
The Saint whose water can light lamps, the clairvoyant whose lapse in recall is the breath of God, the true paranoid for whom all is organized in spheres joyful or threatening about the central pulse of himself, the dreamer whose puns probe ancient fetid shafts and tunnels of truth all act in the same special relevance to the word, or whatever it is the word is there, buffering, to protect us from. The act of metaphor than was a thrust at truth and a lie, depending where you were: inside,...
Thomas Pynchon