Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Quotes

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

Language is a tool adequate to provide any degree of precision relevant to a particular situation.

I really value words. I really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions.

Now, what we are not talking about, what you're really coming to, is what compromises one makes so that the listener understands somewhat of what you're doing, what you're trying to express.

If we do away with semi-colons, parentheses and much else, we will lose all music, nuance and subtlety in communication - and end up shouting at one another in block capitals.

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

How or by what magic is it, that we convey our thoughts to one another with such case and accuracy?

For my next trick I will make everyone understand me.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

It's funny because I've made a living off of words, but words get in the way of what you really want to say.

One of the hardest things in the world is to convey a meaning accurately from one mind to another.

Bad terminology is the enemy of good thinking.

Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear.

People like to say, 'What do you mean exactly?' I would answer, 'I mean, but not exactly.'

I don't think it's necessary to shout if you have a good story. But I also don't think you should shy away from being bold in the statement that you're making.

Words may show a man's wit but actions his meaning.

Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think.

It's important to be precise about words, because of the thought value of them-they frame and shape so much of the way we understand things.

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.

I'm here to make sense.

Symbols are the imaginative signposts of life.

Genuine good taste consists in saying much in few words, in choosing among our thoughts, in having order and arrangement in what we say, and in speaking with composure.

Ambiguity is very interesting in writing; it's not very interesting in science.

The right word fitly spoken is a precious rarity.