William Safire Quotes

Words take on many different meanings.

Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the skin of a living thought and may vary in color and context according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.

The ambiguities of language, both in terms of vocabulary and syntax, are fascinating: how important connotation is, what is lost and what is gained in the linguistic transition.

The meaning of words has become so blurred by past usage that 'abstract' is identified with 'vague' and 'unreal,' and 'inwardness' with a sort of traditional beatitude... The conception of the word 'plastic' has also been limited by individual interpretations.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.

Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way?

Words contract a significance which clings to them long after the condition of things to which they owe it has passed away.

No word is absolutely wrong or dirty or insulting. It all depends upon context and intention.

Ordinary language carries with it conditions of meaning which it is easy to recognize by classifying the contexts in which the expression is employed in a meaningful manner.

For me, words are just words, nothing else.

In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, and therefore needs to be interpreted by the context.

Without a possibility of change in meanings human communication could not perform its present functions.

It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

It is important that we realize that words have meanings far beyond the dictionary definition.

Drop a word in the ocean of meaning and concentric ripples form. To define a single word means to try to catch those ripples. No one’s hands are fast enough.

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.

I don't talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.

How strange that the world should change because of words, and words change because of the world

We never choose which words to use, for as long as they mean what they mean to mean, we don’t care if they make sense or nonsense.

A signal is comprehended if it serves to make us notice the object or situation it bespeaks. A symbol is understood when we conceive the idea it presents.

Meaning, however, is no great matter.