Right Words Quotes

• The use of the right word, the exact word, is the difference between a pencil with a sharp point and a thick crayon.

  Peter Marshall

  Differences, Use, Crayon

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• The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Humorous

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.13, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.

  George Eliot

  Our Actions, Action, Communicate

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.204, Penguin

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• One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

  Jack Kerouac

  Life, Wisdom, Writing

  "Some of the Dharma". Book by Jack Kerouac, 1997.

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• A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.

  Mark Twain

  Spiritual, Powerful, Book

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.521, Courier Corporation

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• It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

  Robert Southey

  Happiness, Teacher, Teaching

  "A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern" ed. by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company, (p. 52), 1908.

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• A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Life, Color, Skins

  Towne v. Eisner (1918)

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  Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Powerful, Reading, Communication

  Speech, 14 Feb. 1923, in The Times 15 Feb. 1923

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  Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Honesty, Integrity, Writing

  1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

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• The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

  Mark Twain

  Kindness, Book, Communication

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.520, Courier Corporation

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• God sends people into our lives just when we need them, to say the right word, His word, just when we need it.

  W. A. Criswell

  People, Needs, Our Lives

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• Actually ideas are everywhere. It's the paperwork, that is, sitting down and thinking them into a coherent story, trying to find just the right words, that can and usually does get to be labor.

  Fred Saberhagen

  Thinking, Ideas, Trying

  10 Copy quote

• Writing well isn't just a question of winsome expression, but of having found something big and true to say and having found the right words to say it in, of having seen something large and having found the right words to say it small, small enough to enter an individual mind so that the strong ideas of what the words are saying sound like sweet reason.

  Adam Gopnik

  Sweet, Strong, Writing

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• There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.

  Orson Scott Card

  Inspirational, World, Enders Game

  Orson Scott Card (2010). “Ender's Game”, p.90, Macmillan

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• So in writing, there is always a right word, and every other than that is wrong. There is no beauty in words except in their collocation. The effect of a fanciful word misplaced, is like that of a horn of exquisite polish growing on a human head.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Writing, Growing, Horns

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1992). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.376, University of Missouri Press

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• Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Fall, Communication, Words You Speak

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (2007). “Poems 1”, p.125, Reprint Services Corporation

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• You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Inspirational, I Hate You, People

  FaceBook post by Nicholas Sparks from Aug 07, 2013

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• Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.

  Edward Thorndike

  Wise, Wisdom, Fall

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• Don't worry about having the right words; worry more about having the right heart. It's not eloquence he seeks, just honesty.

  Max Lucado

  God, Faith, Christian

  Max Lucado (2011). “The Great House of God”, p.46, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

  Ingrid Bergman

  Love, Valentines Day, Nature

  "An Uncommon Scold". Book by Abby Adams, 1989.

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• Carve every word before you let it fall.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Fall, Communication, Thinking

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• Mark Twain said, The right word is to the nearly right word as lightning is to the lightning bug. Fill your book with lightning.

  Robert Littell

  Book, Bugs, Lightning

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• The right word at the right time helps you make sense of the world. It helps, but sometimes not a lot.

  Chris Lynch

  World, Helping, Sometimes

  Chris Lynch (2012). “Angry Young Man”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

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• Style means the right word. The rest matters little.

  Jules Renard

  Mean, Writing, Style

  Jules Renard (2008). “The Journal of Jules Renard”, p.62, Tin House Books

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• For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.

  Catherine Drinker Bowen

  Healing, Writing, Realization

  46 Copy quote