every word calls up far more of a picture than its actual meaning is supposed to do, and the writer has to deal with all these silent associations as well as with the uttered significance.
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.
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the skin of a living thought and may vary in color and context according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance.
Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.
Art is one of the dirtiest words in our language; it's mucked up with all kinds of meanings. There's the art of plumbing; there's the art of almost anything that you can say.
Words contract a significance which clings to them long after the condition of things to which they owe it has passed away.
It's the emotion...each word has got a connotation and symbolism and the thing is finding what's behind the word-what meaning it has and what emotion. I'm really into vocal repetition as a definite art form.
If I called my kids a moron, I think it would traumatize them. I don't think they even know what the word is.
There is something like an explosion in the meaning of certain words: they have a greater value than their meaning in the dictionary.
I'm well-read as far as literary fiction, but I wanted to make better decisions about my writing, to use words or phrases more confidently by learning how your words can be interpreted, the shades of meaning, the different connotations.
Annexation is an ugly word, and ugly deeds have been done under it—but the word need not frighten us and the deeds by no means be repeated.
Every word is a prejudice.
I think the interesting thing about the word 'posh' is that it is so relative; it's quite a provocative title because people have strong feelings about that word.
I hate a word like 'pets': it sounds so much Like something with no living of its own.
Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them; and the disgust which they produce arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united.
Words themselves are neutral. It's the charge we add to them that matters
Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own artistic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.
There is no good word for stomach; just as there is no good word for girlfriend. Stomach is to girlfriend as belly is to lover, and as abdomen is to consort, and as middle is to petite amie.
Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one?
