Jack Kerouac Quotes

Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we would be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't.

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.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

Never be so brief as to become obscure.

Grasp the subject, the words will follow.

I wanted to tell him so. Find the right words, string them together in the ideal way, knowing that here they would have the best chance of sounding perfect.

I'm tired of wasting letters when punctuation will do, period.

The only thing you have to know are your words.

Words are like untying a corset - you can move into this great space with them.

All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

The human word is neither immortal nor invulnerable; but it is the power that orders our chaos, and the light by which we live.

I love words, and I love that there's so many words available to make a point and to create a picture.

Writing is the best way to get your mind clear. It's also a great way to explain your past or what you hope for the future.

Writing and speaking and communicating, it's something important to me, and something I want to get better at.

The key to all knowledge comes in words of just one syllable, apparently.... There's only the last page left to write on. I'll fill it with words of just one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.

Twenty to one offend more in writing too much than too little.

We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

Everything that can be said, can be said clearly.

If you dont [sic] say what you want, what's the sense of writing?

I don't know how you feel, but I feel like writing, clarity of thought, and truth have been validated because we see what happens when we get lax in those areas. I'm excited by the idea that writers like us can actually reach out and try to understand and prod and agitate the people who are in support of Trump because we have the tools to do it. We're language people and we're idea people.

Thinking cannot be clear until it has had expression-we must write, or speak, or act our thoughts, or they will remain in half torpid form. Our feelings must have expression, or they will be as clouds, which, till they descend in rain, will never bring up fruit or flowers. So it is with all the inward feelings; expression gives them development-thought is the blossom; language is the opening bud; action the fruit behind it.

Why do we embroider everything we say with special emphasis when all we really need to do is simply say what needs to he said? Of course the fact is that there is very little that needs to be said.

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.

Language is a finding place, not a hiding place.