T. S. Eliot Quotes

My tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so my pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely put them better.

I am such a person of words. I've spent so much of my life trying to get it right, say it right, say it eloquently, say it truthfully, say it honestly, that when I hear it said in ways that none of those adverbs would describe I find myself so repelled that it almost shuts my mind off.

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

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

We think of speaking as something we do naturally, without any effort. But like playing music, it requires attention and knowledge and practice.

I've always been very wordy; I've got a great vocabulary.

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

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.

Eloquence is the child of knowledge.

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

I'm so language-based and I'm so about communicating, and my art has always been very audience-based, and very about being functional and communicating something, and about feeling like I have to be heard.

I don't know. Sometimes I try to say what's on my mind and it comes out sounding like I ate a dictionary and I'm shitting pages. Sorry

Why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences?

Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.

We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.

Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way.

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?

Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say.

We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.

The tongue is the only tool that gets sharper with use.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things.

So the lover must struggle for words.

Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts.

There are people who have tremendously important things to say, but they say it so poorly that nobody would ever want to read it.