March 1–7 is
National Words Matter Week, (
Words Matter Week) sponsored again this year by the
National Association of Independent Writers and Editors. In honor of this week, below are some quotes about words.
When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain. – William Shakespeare
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
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. – Mark Twain
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
Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. – Theodore Dreiser
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. – James Michener
To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music the words make. – Truman Capote
It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. – Robert Southey
One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. – Hart Crane
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. – Author Unknown
A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one. – Baltasar Gracián
He that uses many words for the explaining any subject doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink. – John Ray
There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes. – William Makepeace Thackeray
