Norton Juster Quotes

Words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant.

Without a possibility of change in meanings human communication could not perform its present functions.

Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

If we are to look only at the words, then we inquire, not what this man meant, but what those words would mean in the mouth of a normal speaker.

Words are a strange thing. You once saw an animal and decided it's a 'cat.' But cat is a sound. This cat has nothing to do with the animal. But I have decided it's a cat. So a cat it is.

Whatever I write in email, it doesn't mean anything. It is just words I write.

How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.

In a world of more brilliance words don't mean anything.

It is not often that we use language correctly; usually we use it incorrectly, though we understand each others meaning.

Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality - the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.

No word is absolutely wrong or dirty or insulting. It all depends upon context and intention.

Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.

All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.

The words of the world want to make sentences.

Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

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

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

Metaphor matters because it creates expectations.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

I believe words mean something. I really do.

It's the intent, not the word, that makes something harsh.

I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book.

Drop a word in the ocean of meaning and concentric ripples form. To define a single word means to try to catch those ripples. No one’s hands are fast enough.

Everything we say is a story. But nothing we say is just a story.