Tom Stoppard Quotes

Every word written is a net to catch the word that has escaped.

I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

I believe words mean something. I really do.

Whatever one wishes to say, there is one noun only by which to express it, one verb only to give it life, one adjective only which will describe it. One must search until one has discovered them, this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never rest content with approximations, never resort to trickery, however happy, or to vulgarism, in order to dodge the difficulty.

One word is worth a thousand pictures. If it's the right word.

A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.

I think sometimes a narrative can come out of a single word.

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

Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins.

Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message.

I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear. "Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock. Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.

Words, words. They're all we have to go on.

The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this.

A word is no light matter. Words have with truth been called fossil poetry, each, that is, a symbol of a creative thought.

Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

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

Bad terminology is the enemy of good thinking.

Whatever you want to say, there is only one word to express it, only one verb to give it movement, only one adjective to qualify it.

Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound, Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.

In this box are all the words I know… Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is use them well and in the right places.

I'm very interested in language because it reflects our obsessions and ways of conceptualising the world.

My use of language is part and parcel of my message.

It's important to be precise about words, because of the thought value of them-they frame and shape so much of the way we understand things.