Walter Brueggemann Quotes

I have found that there are moments when someone uses language that sears itself into the head [of the listener]. Those are the moments I look for.

Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words.

Men are apt to be much more influenced by words than by the actual facts of the surrounding reality

It is no secret that the moon has no light of her own, but is, as it were, a mirror, receiving brightness from the influence of the sun.

I love the power of words - no music or special effects - and I want to demonstrate that power.

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

A borrowed light, circular in form, it revolves about the earth, as if following the track of a chariot.

Once you can express yourself, you can tell the world what you want from it. All the changes in the world, for good or evil, were first brought about by words.

You can’t go to a movie—or watch a television show … without hearing the constant use of the F-word, including … ladies using it. It’s very sad

When I was younger, I would write a ton, mostly because my mom told me I had incredible creativity and a gift of using words, only these were words that didn't get me in trouble.

Words are powerful.

All people in the world - who are not hermits or mutes - speak words. They speak different languages, but they speak words. They say, "How are you" or "I'm not feeling well" all over the world. These common words - these common elements that we have between us - the writer has to take some verbs and nouns and pronouns and adjectives and adverbs and arrange them in a way that sound fresh.

The words are purposes./The words are maps./I came to see the damage that was done/and the treasures that prevail.

I still believe in the power of the word, that words inspire.

If it's one thing we learned from the first book, it's that you don't have to be a prizefighter, or a world-renowned architect, or a concert violinist to have been affected by the power of words.

Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

It's not just what you say that stirs people. It's the way that you say it.

Slogans can be worse than swords if they are only put in the right mouths.

He was a writer and words were his weapons.

Is there no room for art in the spoken language? What is the use of creating an unnatural language to the exclusion of the natural one?

I don't believe, in the end, that there is any such thing as no style. Even a very neutral, plain style, one that doesn't use colloquialisms, lyrical flourishes, heavy supplies of metaphor, etc., is a style, and it becomes a writer's characteristic style just as much as a thicker, richer deployment of idiom and vocabulary.

All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, trebleor centuple use and meaning.

The mystery lies in the use of language to express human life.

Really, Rachel looked like a sun, bright and exuding energy, holding us two moons in a parallel orbit by the sheer force of her will.

Words are immortal - Elinor