Diction Quotes

• An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego.

  Alec Guinness

  Personality, Ego, Acting

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• This dark diction has become America's addiction.

  Kanye West

  Song, Dark, America

  Song: Crack_Music_, Album: Late Registration

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• English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.

  Vivien Leigh

  People, Age, France

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• You know I am an actor, and I have medals for diction.

  Paul Robeson

  Actors, Medal, Knows

  Paul Robeson, Philip Sheldon Foner (1978). “Paul Robeson speaks: writings, speeches, interviews, 1918-1974”, Brunner-Routledge

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• The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story.

  Donna Tartt

  Book, Character, Long

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• Let us, cautious in diction, And mighty in contradiction, Love powerfully.

  Martin Buber

  Life, Power Of Love, Cautious

  "Power and Love". Poem by Martin Buber, 1926.

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• Every morning, I shall concern myself anew about the boundary, Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No, And pressing forward honor reality. We cannot avoid, Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion, To afflict the world, So let us, cautious in diction, And mighty in contradiction, Love powerfully.

  Martin Buber

  Life, Morning, Reality

  "Power and Love". Poem by Martin Buber, 1926.

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• The idea of 'talking white,' a lot of people grew up around that, just the idea that if you speak with proper diction and come off as educated that it's not black and that it's actually anti-black and should be considered only something that white people would do.

  Chance the Rapper

  Talking, Ideas, White

  "Chance the Rapper remembers 'talking white' and fighting black on Acid rap" by Nadeska Alexis, www.mtv.com. May 14, 2013.

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• I'm very anxious not to fall into archaism or 'literary' diction. I want my vocabulary to have a very large range, but the words must be alive.

  James Agee

  Fall, Writing, Vocabulary

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• When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Writing, Hair, Unity

  FaceBook post by Edwidge Danticat from Jul 12, 2011

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• When we are understood, we always speak well, and then all your fine diction serves no purpose.

  Moliere

  Purpose, Speech, Speak

  "The Learned Ladies (Act II, Scene 6)". Book by Moliere, March 11, 1672.

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• Exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. But diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. As no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. There may possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no polished language without books.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Men, Childhood

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.653

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• Voice really depends on the answer to the question, Who is telling this story? . . . That will color your diction-and determine your metaphors, your sensibility.

  Philip Gerard

  Writing, Color, Voice

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• Enunciation, diction, all that stuff. None of that is in my personality.

  Shaquille O'Neal

  Media, Nba, Personality

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• You don't want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power.

  Rufus Choate

  Air, Want, Association

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 481), 1895.

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• But Michael Jackson didn't have perfect diction - He said 'chamone' instead of 'come on'.

  will.i.am

  Perfect, Said

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• Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter.

  Peter De Vries

  Cookies, Shapes, Cutters

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• Many of the finest and most interesting emotions perish forever, because too complex and fugitive for expression. Of all things relating to man, his feelings are perhaps the most evanescent, the greater part dying in the moment of their birth. But while emotions perish, thought blended in diction is immortal.

  William Benton Clulow

  Men, Expression, Interesting

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• In conducting interviews, my fascination is not only with the content of the conversation, but also the overall delivery of spoken language - so much of one's personality and story is embedded within their speech, their rhythms, the structure of their thoughts, their use of particular diction or dialect.

  Steve Cosson

  Personality, Fascination, Stories

  "The Civilians’ Museum as Musical". Interview with Rachel Egan, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 12, 2014.

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• Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction. See whether wisdom is just a lot of language.

  Carl Sandburg

  Vocabulary, Today, Language

  Carl Sandburg (2015). “Honey and Salt”, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Actually, I'm addicted to science fiction. Let me make my diction clear - I love sci-fi.

  John Rhys-Davies

  Fiction, Sci Fi, Let Me

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• Fact is richer than diction.

  J. L. Austin

  Facts

  "Philosophical Papers" by J. L. Austin, James Opie Urmson, Geoffrey James Warnock, 3rd ed., New York: Oxford, (p. 195), 1979.

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• Funny enough, every role that I have had, I try to tone down my accent or speak with better diction.

  Djimon Hounsou

  Trying, Tone, Roles

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I like to try and mix diction and experiences.

  George Ezra

  Trying

  Source: www.coupdemainmagazine.com

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• But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Alliances

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.18, Рипол Классик

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