Written Word Quotes

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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 written word may be man's greatest invention. It allows us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Men, May, Invention

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• Books are the building blocks of civilization, for without the written word, a man knows nothing beyond what occurs during his own brief years and, perhaps, in a few tales his parents tell him.

  Louis L'Amour

  Block, Book, Men

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• Things spoken can be forgotten and forgiven, but the written word has the power to change the course of history, to alter our lives.

  Teresa Mummert

  Forgotten, Forgiven, Power To Change

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• But a piece of paper can be a powerful presence. I have always had enormous respect for the written word and invariably find a letter more revealing than a face-to-face conversation. In a strange way I suspect I will get to know you better at a distance than I would if you had stayed at home.

  Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

  Powerful, Distance, Home

  Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey (1998). “A Woman of Independent Means”, p.172, Penguin

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• The written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lasts, Advantage, Effects

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.134, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Humility, Crafts

  "New York Journal-American" Newspaper, July 11, 1961.

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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 most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Teaching

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• To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.

  Truman Capote

  Music, Writing, Creativity

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.88, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

  John Steinbeck

  Stupid, Writing, Discipline

  John Steinbeck (2001). “A Life in Letters”, p.729, Penguin UK

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• My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.

  Joseph Conrad

  Writing, Trying, Tasks

  The Nigger of the Narcissus preface (1897)

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• While the spoken word can travel faster, you can't take it home in your hand. Only the written word can be absorbed wholly at the convenience of the reader.

  Kingman Brewster, Jr.

  Home, Hands, Convenience

  "The enduring American press: texts of talks given by a panel of distinguished journalists and scholars at a symposium marking the 200th anniversary of the Hartford Courant, Hartford, Connecticut". Book by The Hartford Courant, 1964.

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• The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.

  Mark Twain

  Writing, Want, Satisfaction

  Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine (1971). “Mark Twain's notebook”, Scholarly Pr

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• Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

  C. S. Lewis

  Communication, Writing, Mean

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• I think the written word is probably the best medium of communication because you have time to reflect, you have time to choose your words, to get your sentences exactly right. Whereas when you're being interviewed, say, you have to talk on the fly, you have to improvise, you can change sentences around, and they're not exactly right.

  Richard Dawkins

  Communication, Thinking, Mediums

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• I feel the written word, poetry and literature is just one of the most beautiful things that human beings do. So we have to fight for it.

  Helen Mirren

  Beautiful, Fighting, Literature

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• The beauty of the written word is that it can be held close to the heart and read over and over again.

  Florence Littauer

  Writing, Heart, Written

  Florence Littauer (1989). “Silver Boxes: The Encouragement Gift”, p.46, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Infinite, Makers, Creative Writing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.13, North Atlantic Books

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• Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Writing, Schizophrenia, Form

  Interview in "Writers at Work" (The Paris Review Interviews), 8th Series, 1988.

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• A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

  Thomas Mann

  Writing, People, Difficult

  "Essays of Three Decades". Book by Thomas Mann, 1942.

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• The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

  George Orwell

  Truth, Real, Political Language

  "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

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• Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

  William Wordsworth

  Life, Beauty, Beautiful

  William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Ernest De Selincourt, Alan G. Hill, Chester Linn Shaver (1967). “The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: Volume VIII. A Supplement of New Letters”, p.51, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• I know that one is able to win people far more by the spoken that by the written word, and that every great movement on this globe owes its rise to the great speakers and not to the great writers.

  Adolf Hitler

  Winning, People, Movement

  Adolf Hitler (1939). “Mein Kampf: Complete and Unabridged, Fully Annotated”

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• Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.

  Bertrand Russell

  Order, Space, Essentials

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.81, Routledge

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