Norton Juster Quotes

I never knew what was meant by choice of words. It was one word or none.

If we go on explaining we shall cease to understand one another.

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

According to my wife, my use of vocabulary is wide and varied.

For my next trick I will make everyone understand me.

If I wanted you to understand it, I would have explained it better.

Fumbling for a word is everybody's birthright.

Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and I don't believe you do either!

What I mean and what I say is two different things," the BFG announced rather grandly.

Leave words to them whom words, not doings, move.

Obstreperous, ‘huh,” said Tad. “I see you’ve been using that Big Word of the Day calendar I got you last Christmas.” “That is irrefragable,” I told him solemnly.

People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?

It is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obsesses the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into innumerable and inane controversies and fancies.

When we use terms we get confused, yet we have no other way.

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

I am not very good at expressing myself in a simple way so it can create mis-understandings and I hate that.

I'm not very articulate.

I could talk all day, T stands for talking, T stands for tender, T stands for things that don't even rhyme with T.

I'm not as articulate as I'd wanna be.

Language is never a problem when you have the screenplay ready.

If you're ever struggling for something to say, just take a noun and verbalize it. Using simple words in new and interesting ways will creativize your presence.

I am not good at making people understand certain things.

You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend...I bow to them...I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down...I love words so much...The unexpected ones...The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop.

I have this little thing that people call Keegan-ese, where I don't speak English words at all. I just say stuff like, "You gotta toish the doish and you gotta maloish the hoish."