Vocabulary Quotes - Page 20

• One of the frustrations about the modern world is that we don't even have a good vocabulary to describe our state. The word sentiment sounds mushy. [...] Sentiment is not mushy.

  David Brooks

  Frustration, Sound, World

  "Ask the Author Live: David Brooks on the Composure Class". Live chat with readers, www.newyorker.com. January 7, 2011.

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• I'm not a pop artist. For me pop never was.... Pop is concerned with exteriors. I'm concerned with interiors. When I use objects, I see them as a vocabulary of feelings. I can spend a lot of time with objects, and they leave me as satisfied as a good meal. I don't think pop artists feel that way.

  Jim Dine

  Artist, Thinking, Feelings

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• One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness. Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

  Tom Lehrer

  Sex, Comedian, Say Anything

  Sydney Morning Herald interview, www.smh.com.au. March 1, 2003.

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• Certainly we must be strong, but strength is, to me, not just a force, but rather a vocabulary of many means

  Doris Humphrey

  Strong, Mean, Force

  Doris Humphrey (1959). “The art of making dances”

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• The language of the culture also reflects the stories of the culture. One word or simple phrasal labels often describe the story adequately enough in what we have termed culturally common stories. To some extent, the stories of a culture are observable by inspecting the vocabulary of that culture. Often entire stories are embodied in one very culture-specific word. The story words unique to a culture reveal cultural differences.

  Roger Schank

  Unique, Simple, Differences

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• Looking at virtual reality through computer screens, video game screens, and above all television screens is a denial of personality development. It's a denial of socialization, of expansion of vocabulary, of interaction with real human beings.

  Ralph Nader

  Real, Games, Personality

  "A Portrait of the Crusader as a Young Man". Interview with Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell, www.motherjones.com. March 14, 2007.

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• My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life.

  Grace Paley

  Writing, Useless, Adequate

  Grace Paley (2014). “Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories”, p.85, Macmillan

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• There's a way of thinking that comes with being an editor that is incredibly useful on the set. It's not just a vocabulary thing or a right-to-left thing or script supervisor stuff. It's a way of thinking about the film and the shots and the way they fit together, what you need and what you don't need, and what you can get away with if you have to.

  Joe Dante

  Thinking, Editors, Together

  "INTERVIEW: What You Can Get Away With: The Collegial Cutting Room Collaborators of Joe Dante, Part 2". Interview with Peter Tonguette, www.indiewire.com. January 14, 2012.

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• So many young decorators are trying to reinvent the wheel, and the results are sometimes very dubious. They're striving to do things that have never been done before. Quite often it is done without authority, without knowledge, and without a background in taste. They need to be educated about the past, and they need a richer vocabulary.

  Albert Hadley

  Past, Design, Trying

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• We are so impressed by scientific clank that we feel we ought not to say that the sunflower turns because it knows where the sun is. It is almost second nature to us to prefer explanations . . . with a large vocabulary. We are much more comfortable when we are assured that the sunflower turns because it is heliotropic. The trouble with that kind of talk is that it tempts us to think that we know what the sunflower is up to. But we don't. The sunflower is a mystery, just as every single thing in the universe is.

  Robert Farrar Capon

  Thinking, Sunflower, Kind

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• Over the course of several articles, I will give you the tools to become a sentence connoisseur as well as a sentence artisan. Each of my lessons will give you the insight to appreciate fine sentences and the vocabulary to talk about them.

  Constance Hale

  Appreciate, Giving, Tools

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• As the language or vocabulary of photography has been extended, the emphasis of meaning has shifted, shifted from what the world looks like to what we feel about the world and what we want the world to mean.

  Aaron Siskind

  Photography, Mean, Looks

  Aaron Siskind, Henry Holmes Smith, Thomas B. Hess (1965). “Aaron Siskind, photographer”

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• The words "I Can't" should be permanently stricken from your vocabulary, especially the vocabulary of your thoughts. You must see yourself always growing and improving.

  Arnold Schwarzenegger

  Inspiring, Achievement, Growing

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• I believe that if it were possible to scrap the whole of existing literature, all writers would find themselves inevitably producing something very close to SF ... No other form of fiction has the vocabulary of ideas and images to deal with the present, let alone the future.

  J. G. Ballard

  Believe, Ideas, Literature

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• There are congregations on nearly every corner. I'm not sure we need more churches. What we need is a church. I say one church is better than fifty. I have tried to remove the plural form churches from my vocabulary, training myself to think of the church as Christ did, and as the early Christians did. The metaphors for her are always singular - a body, a bride. I heard one gospel preacher say it like this, as he really wound up and broke a sweat: "We've got to unite ourselves as one body. Because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming back for a bride not a harem.

  Shane Claiborne

  Christian, Jesus, Thinking

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• All war propaganda consists, in the last resort, in substituting diabolical abstractions for human beings. Similarly, those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder.

  Aldous Huxley

  War, Lasts, Murder

  "Pacifism and Philosophy" by Aldous Huxley, 1936.

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• There is a way in which all writing is connected. In a second language, for example, a workshop can liberate the students' use of the vocabulary they're acquiring.

  Marilyn Hacker

  Writing, Use, Literature

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• Compassion is a piece of vocabulary that could change us if we truly let it sink into the standards to which we hold ourselves and others.

  Krista Tippett

  Work, Compassion, Pieces

  "Reconnecting with compassion". TED Talks, www.ted.com. November 2010.

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• I am working out the vocabulary of my silence.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Work Out, Silence, Chaos

  Muriel Rukeyser (1994). “Out of Silence: Selected Poems”, p.135, Northwestern University Press

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• To anyone who has followed the practice of using profanity or vulgarity and would like to correct the habit, could I offer this suggestion? First, make the commitment to erase such words from your vocabulary. Next, if you slip and say a swear word or a substitute word, mentally reconstruct the sentence without the vulgarity or substitute word and repeat the new sentence aloud. Eventually you will develop a non-vulgar speech habit.

  L. Tom Perry

  Commitment, Practice, Suggestions

  "Thy Speech Reveals Thee". L. Tom Perry's speech at the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, www.lds.org. August 1986.

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• I always try to think of a vocabulary to match different musical situations.

  Roscoe Mitchell

  Thinking, Musical, Trying

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• The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, a waking island.

  Derek Walcott

  Moving, Islands, Luck

  Derek Walcott (2014). “What the Twilight Says: Essays”, p.79, Macmillan

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