Neal Stephenson Quotes

Part of the joy and pleasure of English is its boundless creativity: I can describe a new machine as bicyclish, I can say that I'm vitamining myself to stave off a cold, I can complain that someone is the smilingest person I've ever seen, and I can decide, out of the blue, that 'fetch' is now the word I want to use to mean 'cool.'

Anyone who undertakes the literary grind had better like playing around with words.

Alphabet Juice is the book Roy Blount was born to write, which considering his prodigious talent, is saying a lot. Did you know that the word LAUGH is linguistically related to chickens and pie? This is the book that any of us who urgently, passionately love words-to read them, roll them over the tongue and learn their life stories while laughing and eating chicken and pie-were lucky enough to be born to read.

I love to play with language; make it do tricks, turn a word inside out to see if it's got a hidden meaning tucked away somewhere, or perhaps find that it's capable of an extra entendre or two. . . . Plotting is nothing I did, or do, naturally. It is the hardest part of the writing process. No matter how many times you plot a script successfully, the next one, representing new and uncharted territory, convinces you that you really don't know how to do it at all.

I love words. They're fun. I don't think any word can just be filler. There's no room for it. It's like a puzzle. Every song can be written a million times. How can you say it differently?

What I want is for people to really grab hold of language and not be nervous about it. 'The Word Spy' is all about diving in and playing with words.

I believe that writers have a responsibility to evolve the language, whether by introducing new words or new usages. Shakespeare alone is responsible for something like 3400 words and phrases.

I invent words you think you've heard - spray hopper or swag beetle.

I became an author because I love words. I enjoyed playing with them when I was a kid, writing stories and plays, and doing whatever I could think to do with words. I kept my love of them growing up and still love to see what they can do.

I love making up titles.

I am very proud of being the one to have coined the word.

One of the lesser-known ways of making new words is to form a blend - and a blend is when you run two words together to make a third word.

I enjoy the inventive ways in which language is manipulated to make meaning.

I love playing with language and the rhythm of language - for some reason, this seems so much easier for me to do when I get to make things up than when writing nonfiction.

To be honest, I struggle with words. I often forget them, you know, the official ones. Instead, I make words up. I use home-made words that sound similar to the real thing. Usually, they're some sort of confused hybrid of two existing words.

It's really funny, because if you make up words, then people project their own meanings onto it, which I find interesting.

The truth is that only 1% of all new words are totally new, and of those an even smaller percentage are conjured up out of thin air. The vast majority of coinages are the product of some kind of repurposing, and the result has always been a mix of tradition and innovation.

I never even considered writing a career option. I just liked the play of words. I was certainly interested in story, but the stories I was telling then were in narrative verse and prose poems, short and succinct, except for one novel-length poem written in narrative couplets.

I've coined new words, like, misunderstanding and "Hispanically".

'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'

Who often, but without success, have prayed for apt Alliteration's artful aid.

If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words.

If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.

Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want.