Right Words Quotes - Page 5

• There are many people writing songs. That is absolutely wonderful. Who knows, there may be some kid in diapers and he or she might succeed in capturing in a few dozen words what great writers have spent years trying to say. Just the right word in the right place with the right melody behind it and the right rhythm. It might get around the world inch by inch, and people realize that this world is in danger, that we're in danger. That's the way "This Land Is Your Land" got to be so well known.

  Pete Seeger

  Song, Kids, Writing

  Source: www.wholeearth.com

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• [On George H.W. Bush:] A man who wishes to lead the Western world should be able to find the right words, string them together in coherent sentences, and steer them to an intelligible conclusion. His sentences have the stuttering start of an old car on a cold morning. They never run smoothly. The only speech part that he has mastered completely is the non sequitur.

  Mary McGrory

  Running, Morning, Men

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• The human brain is a funny thing: it's very susceptible to tempo and melody. You put the right words to it, and it becomes very influential.

  Ray Stevens

  Funny Things, Brain, Influential

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• He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

  Joseph Conrad

  Wisdom, Intelligence, Sound

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “Joseph Conrad’s Sea Tales - Premium Collection: An Outcast of the Islands, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’, A Smile of Fortune, Typhoon and more: Classics of World Literature from One of the Greatest English Novelists (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)”, p.1113, e-artnow

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• I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.

  A. E. Housman

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• It is the way of my people to use light words at such times and say less than they mean. We fear to say too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of place.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Mean, Light, People

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings”, p.852, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• These days I just can't seem to say what I mean [...]. I just can't. Every time I try to say something, it misses the point. Either that or I end up saying the opposite of what I mean. The more I try to get it right the more mixed up it gets. Sometimes I can't even remember what I was trying to say in the first place. It's like my body's split in two and one of me is chasing the other me around a big pillar. We're running circles around it. The other me has the right words, but I can never catch her.

  Haruki Murakami

  Running, Mean, Opposites

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Dec 26, 2013

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• Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, 'Life in the Fast Lane?' That's what they're saying right there? You think, 'why have I been singing 'wipe in the vaseline?' how many people have heard me sing 'wipe in the vaseline?' I am an idiot.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Music, Song, Thinking

  Ellen Degeneres (2011). “My Point...And I Do Have One”, p.159, Bantam

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• Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.

  Franz Kafka

  Life, Lying, Names

  Franz Kafka, Nahum Norbert Glatzer (1974). “I am a memory come alive: autobiographical writings”, Schocken

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• I feel like the reason I ended up becoming a playwright is because I never choose the right word. As a kid, my fantasy profession was to be a novelist. But the thing about writing prose - and maybe great prose writers don't feel this way - but I always felt it was about choosing words. I was always like, "I have to choose the perfect word." And then it would kill me, and I would choose the wrong word or I would choose too many perfect words - I wrote really purple prose.

  Annie Baker

  Writing, Kids, Purple

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I am not as concerned about choosing the right words as I am in letting the words flow naturally.

  Gerry Spence

  Flow, Concerned

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• And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

  Dorothy Parker

  Rolling, Three, Poor

  Quoted in Paris Review, Summer 1956

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• Let's cut to the chase, the sharia controversy. I don't think I, or my colleagues, predicted just how enormous the reaction would be. I failed to find the right words. I succeeded in confusing people. I've made mistakes - that's probably one of them.

  Rowan Williams

  Mistake, Cutting, Thinking

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• Both my parents had heavy accents, and so did everybody they knew. It's a rhythm thing - people who speak English where they have to hesitate and think of the right word. And I think it rubbed off.

  Christopher Walken

  Thinking, Speak English, People

  "Readers recommend: songs sung with accents" by Peter Kimpton, www.theguardian.com. November 19, 2015.

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• I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that's the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up - either religious or social laws - become meaningless.

  Bruce Springsteen

  Religious, Thinking, Law

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• When I go to bed at night, I ask God to give me another day; I ask him to keep me strong and make me a good teacher and to keep spreading this right word.

  Richard Simmons

  Teacher, Strong, Night

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

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• A loyal liberal can get away with anything with other liberals, as long as that loyal liberal is liberal and attacks conservatives left and right, spouts the right words, they get away with anything.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Long, Loyal, Get Away

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• I don't know if proud is the right word, but I am somebody who does not, on the whole, have the highest regard for my own stuff in that when I look all I get to see are the flaws.

  Neil Gaiman

  Doe, Looks, Literature

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• Use the right word, not its second cousin.

  Mark Twain

  Cousin, Use

  Mark Twain (1994). “Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches”, p.349, Penguin

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• To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Light, Ideas

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• Everything gets horrible. Everything you see gets ugly. Lurid is the word. Doctor Garton said lurid, one time. That's the right word for it. And everything sounds harsh, spiny and harsh sounding, like every sound you hear all of a sudden has teeth. And smelling like I smell bad even after I just got out of the shower. It's like what's the point of washing if everything smells like I need another shower

  David Foster Wallace

  Smell, Doctors, Ugly

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• Words were useless. At times, they might sound wonderful, but they let you down the moment you really needed them. You could never find the right words, never, and where would you look for them? The heart is as silent as a fish, however much the tongue tries to give it a voice.

  Cornelia Funke

  Heart, Voice, Giving

  Cornelia Funke (2011). “Inkspell”, p.304, Scholastic Inc.

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• Then I went to bed and cried into my pillow. I wasn't sad, not at all. It was just so beautiful to have an intense feeling and the right words at the same time. What are we but our stories?

  James Patterson

  Beautiful, Feelings, Bed

  James Patterson (2004). “Sam's letters to Jennifer”

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• The girl in the tight black dress was passing by us now, eyeing Wes and walking entirely too slowly. "Hi," she said, and he nodded at her but didn't reply. Knew it, I thought. Honestly," I said. What?" Come on. You have to admit, it's sort of ridiculous." What is?" Now that I had to define it, I found myself struggling for the right words. "You know," I said, then figured Kristy had really summed it up best. "The sa-woon." The what?

  Sarah Dessen

  Girl, Struggle, Passing By

  Sarah Dessen (2008). “The Truth About Forever”, p.171, Penguin UK

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• For, how else to seize such an instant? How to shout out into the empty air just the right words, and on cue? Frame a moment to last a lifetime?

  Richard Ford

  Air, Lasts, Moments

  Richard Ford (2006). “Independence Day”, p.352, A&C Black

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