Nouns Quotes

• One of the glories of English simplicity is the possibility of using the same word as noun and verb.

  Edward Sapir

  Simplicity, Verbs, Glory

  Edward Sapir, Pierre Swiggers (2008). “General Linguistics”, p.268, Walter de Gruyter

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• I didn't know what I was. I didn't have a noun.

  Rob Sheffield

  Knows

  Rob Sheffield (2007). “Love Is a Mix Tape: Life, Loss, and What I Listened To”, p.160, Crown Archetype

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• If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective.

  J. Anthony Lukas

  Strong, Writing, Needs

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• I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Verbs, Earth, Process

  "I Seem to Be a Verb". Book by Buckminster Fuller, 1970.

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• We all have some proper noun to blame.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Blame

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Tell-All”, p.129, Random House

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• One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
  An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
  The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
  The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

  Kenneth Koch

  Dark, Next Day, One Day

  Kenneth Koch (2012). “On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988”, p.75, Knopf

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• All the facts of nature are nouns of the intellect, and make the grammar of the eternal language. Every word has a double, trebleor centuple use and meaning.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Use, Facts, Language

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.75, North Atlantic Books

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• Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Mean, Men, Expression

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  I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Girl, Witty, Women

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2003). “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: National protection for national citizens, 1873 to 1880”, p.491, Rutgers University Press

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• The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.

  William Strunk, Jr.

  Adjectives, Weak, Built

  WILLIAM STRUNK, JR. (1959). “THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE”

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• Life is a verb, not a noun.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Love, Verbs, Life Is

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1904). “Human Work”, p.203, Rowman Altamira

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• Happiness is not a noun or a verb. It's a conjunction. Connective tissue.

  Eric Weiner

  Verbs, Tissues, Conjunctions

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• In a language as idiomatically stressed as English, opportunities for misreadings are bound to arise. By a mere backward movement of stress, a verb can become a noun, an act a thing. To refuse, to insist on saying no to what you believe is wrong, becomes at a stroke refuse, an insurmountable pile of garbage.

  Ian Mcewan

  Stress, Believe, Opportunity

  Ian McEwan (1999). “Amsterdam”

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• Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.

  C. S. Lewis

  Writing, Mean, People

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• I wanted to write rather than do anything else. But 'cause I left school at 15, I didn't know what a noun was, still don't.

  Nick Frost

  Writing, School, Causes

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• The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge.

  Stephen Nachmanovitch

  Creativity, Self, Play

  Stephen Nachmanovitch (1991). “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art”, p.52, Penguin

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• Marriage is not a noun; it's a verb. It isn't something you get. It's something you do. It's the way you love your partner every day.

  Barbara De Angelis

  Love, Marriage, Verbs

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• Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows Where noun, and verb, and participle grows.

  John Dryden

  Tree, Verbs, Language

  John Dryden, Joseph Warton, John Warton (1811). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden: Containing Original Poems, Tales and Translations”, p.353

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• God is a verb, not a noun.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Verbs

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• Why indeed must 'God' be a noun? Why not a verb - the most active and dynamic of all.

  Mary Daly

  God, Faith, Spiritual

  Mary Daly (2015). “Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation”, p.52, Beacon Press

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• I thought art was a verb, rather than a noun.

  Yoko Ono

  Art, Verbs

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

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• Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Stars, Children, Growing Up

  FaceBook post by Fran Lebowitz from May 08, 2010

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• Love is more than a noun-it is a verb; it is more than a feeling-it is caring, sharing, helping, sacrificing.

  William Arthur Ward

  Love, Inspirational, Sacrifice

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• A heart isn't something you get. It's something that's born.

  Yukiru Sugisaki

  Marriage, Heart, Shantaram

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• You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something.

  H. L. Mencken

  Writing, Blow, Trying

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