Randall Jarrell Quotes

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?

What can I say? I'm a talker.

Writing is learning to say nothing, more cleverly each day.

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

Trying to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

Common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter.

I wish to God,” said Gideon with mild exasperation, “that you’d talk—just once—in prose like other people.

As usual, it occurred to me that words were the only thing that could possibly save me from this situation. This was a characteristic misunderstanding on my part. When action was needed, I was absorbed in words; for words proceeded with such difficulty from my mouth that I was intent on them and forgot all about action. It seemed to me that actions, which are dazzling, varied things, must always be accompanied by equally dazzling and equally varied words.

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

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.

Critics I don't understand. They get too intellectual. They're not very well-versed in street talk; it takes them longer to say it. So they have to do it in dictionaries and they take longer to say it.

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

Ordinary people can be very articulate and very eloquent.

Even silence is so articulate at times.

Predictions can sound really good if you're good with words and can express them eloquently and give people ideas and inspiration in their head. But I'm not really good at that, so I don't want to.

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.

Thy words, I grant are bigger, for I wear not, my dagger in my mouth.

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?

I like to talk. Talking is kind of my thing. If talking had been a sport option at Wexford, I would have been captain. But sports always have to involve running, jumping, or swinging your arms around. You don’t get PE points for the smooth and rapid movement of the jaw.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

I have always had this failing - that I cannot explain myself, as I have said, except at the cost of many words.

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