The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
Terry Pratchett
Related Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.Elves are fantasti... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves ... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves ar... TERRY PRATCHETT If it is true that words have meanings, why don't we throw away words and keep just the meanings? I know you lawyers can, with ease, twist words and meanings as you please JOHN GAY Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings ... ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Words can change their meaning, just by repeating them. DEYTH BANGER He should have known better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, he had discov... ROBERT A. HEINLEIN Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have differen... BLAISE PASCAL If words don't have vibration behind them, and a real feeling behind them, then they're just... CHARLOTTE RAMPLING Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have a differ... BLAISE PASCAL Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have a differ... BLAISE PASCAL You have to have funny faces and words, you can't just have words. It is a powerful thing, and I thi... ELLEN DEGENERES The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the ... PHILIP K. DICK One of the greatest things about writing as a profession is that the words of Tolstoy, Chesterton an... PHILIP YANCEY The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the ... PHILIP K. DICK If you are the type looking to hear sweet words before you fall in love,then you are among the fooli... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) We have seen that English words have meaning in a sentence because of their position in the sentence... CHARLTON LAIRD That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific-chair, eye, stone- but when you talked ... JANET FITCH If you see a snake, just kill it - don't appoint a committee on snakes. ROSS PEROT It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever... HARUKI MURAKAMI Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change. ANTONIN SCALIA And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words... As i... ALAN W. WATTS Words themselves aren't that important. Even if somebody says words that shock you, or make you want... RYū MURAKAMI If you see a snake, just kill it - don't appoint a committee on snakes. ROSS PEROT Men of the world who value the Way all turn to books. But books are nothing more than words. Words h... ZHUANGZI You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong. DAVID LEVITHAN The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. I you can control the m... PHILIP K. DICK Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do. ANNE CARSON Read. Everything you can get your hands on. Read until words become your friends. Them when you need... KAREN WITEMEYER There is something like an explosion in the meaning of certain words: they have a greater value than... MARCEL DUCHAMP If words are doing their job, then their novelty will not be the most noticeable thing about them. ERIN MCKEAN What I'm attempting to do is to show people that if I can spend some time with very dangerous sp... DOMINIC MONAGHAN Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, ... TOM STOPPARD Sanskrit is a beautiful contextual language. It is called “Dev Bhasha” the language of the soul.... AMIT RAY We can't change the world by shouting, but our words can have meaning if we give them enough respect... EVAN MEEKINS If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way. SEAMUS HEANEY I have a passion for big cats, I like big snakes. There is something about snakes that is so wise, t... ANTON LAVEY English is such a deliciously complex and undisciplined language, we can bend, fuse, distort words t... DR. WILLARD GAYLIN If you want to get rid of the perceived meaning of curse words, you’ll have to get rid of the feel... ORLANDO WINTERS It is not that I do not have time to discuss. It's just that I find you worthless for my worthwhile ... NAQIBULLAH PAIMAN But I love you, and before you say it words do matter. They're not pointless. If they were pointless... CATH CROWLEY We can only be enlightened to the meaning of wise words only and only if life have put and mad... TOBA BETA Words! What power they hold. Once they have rooted in your psyche, it is difficult to escape them. W... VASHTI QUIROZ-VEGA You know the great thing about life I feel...is that if your really consciously choose to...you can ... G. BRIAN BENSON Mark My Words, My Words In Other Words Are Not Just Words. SYED SHARUKH Weigh the meaning and look not at the words. BEN JONSON A little girl's fantasies are one thing, and literature is another; just as numbers require rules to... BENJAMIN MOSER Like water our ideals for writing what seems at first to be a calling to pen a masterpiece, it at fi... ABIGAIL GEORGE To forgive someone is all good but if you do that to certain people they just keep doing the same th... GARY F EVANS... You can give words, but you can't take them. And when words are given and received, that is when the... DAVID LEVITHAN It feels like spoken words, this bridge. I want it but fear it. God, I want so desperately to reach ... MARKUS ZUSAK When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have t... HILARY MANTEL If you can weep with your words, the meaning of your heart can be written forever MUNIA KHAN I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go F. SCOTT FITZGERALD O, the sheer magnificence of words that come together like waves upon a beach, each telling its own ... JOHN M SHEEHAN Journalists have misquoted people for so long - and quoted them out of context that for many people ... JASON CALACANIS It is just an opportunity for us to discuss the different word choices we choose to use that might h... DERICK VIRGIL Writing is not like acting, where you can pull these little stunts that create a particular effect. ... DAMON GALGUT I look back at all the years that I have done this and there have been so many people who have helpe... KYLE BRADY The thing about Sondheim is that it does get very cerebral. You do need a faculty with words and a l... LEA SALONGA It’s just words. How can words be dangerous?” “You have a lot to learn about the world, b... CATHERINE RYAN HYDE The hardest part is that some of the words do have syllables in common with other words. You can con... GREG TIPPMAN I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. ... GASTON BACHELARD I hope that they'll learn to put different meanings with certain words. JUAN ARROYO The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The r... ZHUANGZI I do not say words, which you want to hear. The words just told me, to write them down. TOBA BETA Words are just words and nobody told these people to do anything like that, ... The leadership of th... GARY WHITE Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most ... DAN WELLS The meaning of the words is necessary and not their extent. SORIN CERIN I felt as if I had no control over what I said, as if loathsome, ugly words were waiting inside me l... GLORIA WHELAN I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church ... GLENN BECK If people want to be better writers, they can't just read the blogs! You've got to look at s... CAMILLE PAGLIA You can't talk of the dangers of snake poisoning and not mention snakes. C. EVERETT KOOP Sometimes I just thumb through the dictionary. I find words I don't know the meaning of. DYLAN WILLIAMS You can save hundred words with just one look! MEHMET MURAT ILDAN When words lose their meaning and expression, silence is the only language that heart follows, speak... AKSHAY VASU I like to find things that are unconventional and make them look classic, because if I'm forcing... SELENA GOMEZ What happens is that your wretched memory remembers the words and forgets what's behind them. AUGUSTO BASTOS What happens is that your wretched memory remembers the words and forgets what's behind them. AUGUSTO ROA BASTOS It is impossible to get enough books, don't you find? But where are we without them? Just words on t... MELVYN BRAGG Let them see that their words can cut you, and you'll never be free of the mockery. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Let them see that their words can cut you and you’ll never be free of the mockery. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I do love perusing the dictionary to find how many words I don't use - words that have specific,... GEOFFREY RUSH My wife loves written words ... you know, words that stick to parchment and paper like dead flies, a... CORNELIA FUNKE to make this campaign about national security and the fight against terrorism. If that is the case, ... ANTHONY WEINER I love words ... so I can be a sucker for eloquence. Sometimes I assume that there is substance behi... JAN DENISE To enjoy and learn from what you read you must understand the meanings of the words a writer uses. Y... CHARLES HARRINGTON ELSTER The language of friendship is not words but meanings. HENRY DAVID THOREAU The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings. HENRY DAVID THOREAU With a hologram, like when your teacher is one of them, if you aren’t looking right at them, they ... M.T. ANDERSON A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious o... HENRY HAZLITT If you feel the need to confront others that have talked bad about you that shows that you value the... BIANCA FRAZIER Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refus... VIRGINIA WOOLF You poets are accustomed to finding words for everything beautiful and you don’t even grant that p... HERMANN HESSE That was the strange problem with writing, you had discovered. Meaning never matched the words and w... BILAL TANWEER Imagine a world without words! Imagine a world without thoughts! Imagine a world without actions! If... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH If we talk about the living oracles and want to pay respect to them, how shall we do this? Shall we ... JOHN A. WIDTSOE Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of i... GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG A big thing that people want to know is how much of their money goes to the charity and how much is ... DARREN BROWN
More Terry Pratchett
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TERRY PRATCHETT Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things. TERRY PRATCHETT To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don't worry about the darknes... TERRY PRATCHETT Famous I don't know about. It's hard to be famous and alive. I just want to play music every day and... TERRY PRATCHETT No, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally gloomy when sober and hom... TERRY PRATCHETT "I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"<... TERRY PRATCHETT Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended.... TERRY PRATCHETT I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is grow... TERRY PRATCHETT I must have read every issue of 'Punch' published in the 20th century, and I think in the pr... TERRY PRATCHETT Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong. TERRY PRATCHETT There was once a caustic comment from someone suggesting I was breeding a new race. Fans from differ... TERRY PRATCHETT It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Al... TERRY PRATCHETT It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases - one was Alzheimer's, and th... TERRY PRATCHETT By the time you've reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that... TERRY PRATCHETT It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has h... TERRY PRATCHETT Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. TERRY PRATCHETT You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that... TERRY PRATCHETT The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head. TERRY PRATCHETT Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. TERRY PRATCHETT You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a m... TERRY PRATCHETT I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence o... TERRY PRATCHETT Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, ... TERRY PRATCHETT Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces. TERRY PRATCHETT It's useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one. TERRY PRATCHETT It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's... TERRY PRATCHETT It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would muc... TERRY PRATCHETT This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic. TERRY PRATCHETT The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp. TERRY PRATCHETT Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out til too late that he's be... TERRY PRATCHETT Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. TERRY PRATCHETT Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for th... TERRY PRATCHETT Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wron... TERRY PRATCHETT If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged TERRY PRATCHETT Unseen University was much bigger on the inside. Thousands of years as the leading establishment of ... TERRY PRATCHETT Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kiddin... TERRY PRATCHETT Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood ha... TERRY PRATCHETT Siren voices tell me, 'You don't have to keep going on.' And then you think, 'I'... TERRY PRATCHETT We're living in science fiction, but we don't realize it. TERRY PRATCHETT She got on with her education. In her opinion, school kept on trying to interfere with it. TERRY PRATCHETT Albert grunted. "Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?" Mort thought for... TERRY PRATCHETT He's bound to have done something ,” Nobby repeated. In this he was echoing the P... TERRY PRATCHETT Sometimes the crime follows the punishment, which only serves to prove the foresight of the Great Go... TERRY PRATCHETT 'Educational' refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of ... TERRY PRATCHETT Joy is to fun what the deep sea is to a puddle. It’s a feeling inside that can hardly be contained... TERRY PRATCHETT No more words. We know them all, all the words that should not be said. But you have made my world m... TERRY PRATCHETT And what would humans be without love?" RARE, said Death. TERRY PRATCHETT That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all is trut... TERRY PRATCHETT Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant... TERRY PRATCHETT Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree. But people have always been dimly awar... TERRY PRATCHETT The living often don’t appreciate how complicated the world looks when you are dead, because while... TERRY PRATCHETT Hello, inner child, I'm the inner babysitter! TERRY PRATCHETT I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard... TERRY PRATCHETT The baby boomers are getting older, and will stay older for longer. And they will run right into the... TERRY PRATCHETT We have been so successful in the past century at the art of living longer and staying alive that we... TERRY PRATCHETT I regarded finding I had a form of Alzheimer's as an insult and decided to do my best to marshal... TERRY PRATCHETT The bravest person I've ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for ... TERRY PRATCHETT Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising a... TERRY PRATCHETT My advice is this. For Christ's sake, don't write a book that is suitable for a kid of 12 ye... TERRY PRATCHETT You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know tha... TERRY PRATCHETT He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouti... TERRY PRATCHETT Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It... TERRY PRATCHETT My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage... TERRY PRATCHETT And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. TERRY PRATCHETT Everybody has somebody. It could be a friend, a lover, a spouse, a writing partner, or even That One... TERRY PRATCHETT I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You'r... TERRY PRATCHETT But what's worth more than gold?" "Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heav... TERRY PRATCHETT Gnomes live ten times faster than humans. They're harder to see than a high-speed mouse. That's on... TERRY PRATCHETT She walked quickly through the darkness with the frank stride of someone who was at least certain th... TERRY PRATCHETT My experience in Amsterdam is that cyclists ride where the hell they like and aim in a state of rage... TERRY PRATCHETT There was this about vampires : they could never look scruffy. Instead, they were... what was the wo... TERRY PRATCHETT Steal five dollars and you're a common thief. Steal thousands and you're either the government or a ... TERRY PRATCHETT Of course I'm sane, when trees start talking to me, I don't talk back. TERRY PRATCHETT The trouble is you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind. TERRY PRATCHETT Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck. TERRY PRATCHETT Ginger: You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?... It's all the people who never f... TERRY PRATCHETT There's a door." "Where does it go?" "It stays where it is, I think. TERRY PRATCHETT Many people could say things in a cutting way, Nanny knew. But Granny Weatherwax could listen ... TERRY PRATCHETT No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away... TERRY PRATCHETT The enemy isn't men, or women, it's bloody stupid people and no one has the right to be stupid. TERRY PRATCHETT In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this ... TERRY PRATCHETT The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves ... TERRY PRATCHETT The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who t... TERRY PRATCHETT I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said i... TERRY PRATCHETT In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. TERRY PRATCHETT No one's policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head ... TERRY PRATCHETT Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a w... TERRY PRATCHETT At such times the universe gets a little closer to us. They are strange times, times of beginnings a... TERRY PRATCHETT Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken. TERRY PRATCHETT I saved a man's life once," said Granny. "Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of ... TERRY PRATCHETT The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valle... TERRY PRATCHETT She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their ... TERRY PRATCHETT His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability wh... TERRY PRATCHETT Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded ... TERRY PRATCHETT Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they're lords of creation. Not like us cats. We ... TERRY PRATCHETT The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last ... TERRY PRATCHETT Dickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page. TERRY PRATCHETT Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect. TERRY PRATCHETT The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes af... TERRY PRATCHETT Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I'm fortunate; I ... TERRY PRATCHETT It was one of those problematic occasions with long silences, sporadic coughs, and people saying iso... TERRY PRATCHETT Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: 'Or Would You Rather Be ... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.Elves are fantasti... TERRY PRATCHETT Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when yo... TERRY PRATCHETT The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf ... TERRY PRATCHETT Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves ar... TERRY PRATCHETT "Why does everyone run toward a blood curdling scream?" mumbled the Senior Wrangler. "It is contrary... TERRY PRATCHETT A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. TERRY PRATCHETT Sham Harga had run a succesful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and ... TERRY PRATCHETT It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If ... TERRY PRATCHETT It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence coul... TERRY PRATCHETT An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs ... TERRY PRATCHETT A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read. TERRY PRATCHETT Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate... TERRY PRATCHETT The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then... TERRY PRATCHETT For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) ... TERRY PRATCHETT Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his l... TERRY PRATCHETT In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded. TERRY PRATCHETT Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off. TERRY PRATCHETT The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head. TERRY PRATCHETT God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which migh... TERRY PRATCHETT