America is the promised land, because each generation bequeathed to its children a promise, a promise that they might not come to enjoy but which they fully expected their offspring to fulfill. So the words 'all men are created equal' took a life of ...
At times , he didn't understand the meaning of the Koran's words . But he said he liked the enhancing sounds the arabic words made as they rolled off his tongue . He said they comforted him , eased his heart . "They'll comfort you too . Mrariam jo , ...
Very quickly, very suddenly, words fell through my mind. They landed on the floor of my thoughts, an in there, down there, I started to pick the words up. They were excerpts of truth gathered from inside me. Even in the night, in bed, they woke me. T...
Some nonreligious people are disgruntled by the word "faith," feeling that it has no connection to them. But we all have faith. Broadly speaking, "faith" does not apply only to belief in the supernatural. We have faith in our life, for example, belie...
Words are great, but even I can admit they have certain short-comings. No word can ever give justice to a smile from a man who never smiled or to an old woman who gives up her seat on the bus to a soldier who lost his leg. And I’m still convinced t...
The scene is a writer's study, shabby, drafty but tax-deductible. The writer is reading the last hundred pages of his work in progress. For the past fifty or so, a kind of slow terror has been rising in his breast. All these pages had seemed necessar...
Senator Joseph Paine: Let me go! I'm not fit to be a senator! I'm not fit to live! Expel me, not him! Willet Dam is a fraud! It's a crime against the people who sent me here - and I committed it! Every word that boy said is the truth! Every word abou...
Christopher Gardner: [about the spelling mistakes in the graffiti of a building] It's not H-A-P-P-Y-N-E-S-S Happiness is spelled with an "I" instead of a "Y" Christopher: Oh, okay. Is "Fuck" spelled right? Christopher Gardner: Um, yes. "Fuck" is spel...
Laine slowly rolled out of bed. The queen size was one of the few new things in the house. But now, even the new bed felt tainted. It was an inner-spring monument to lies, a petri dish of mendacity she had shared with her faithless husband, and share...
Each new step into his new human existence is frightening. It always means to give up a secure state, which was relatively known, for one which is new, which one has not yet mastered. Undoubtedly, if the infant could think at the moment of the severa...
I remember looking out the window of the little maid's room where we had been installed, seeing the lights of the Palisades across the way, and thinking, There! There it is! There's New York, this wonderful city, I'll go live there someday. Even bein...
Nicholas: So, you've played recently? New Member Ted: Oh, about a year ago. I was working in Los Angeles. Nicholas: I hear the London office is very good, too. It just sounds like a lot of fantasy, role-playing nonsense. New Member Ted: [leans in] Yo...
I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name.
But the male lexicographers had somehow neglected to coin a word for the dislike of men. They were almost entirely men themselves, she thought, and had been unable to imagine a market for such a word.
One word is enough to destroy an entire city provided that word is backed by anger. Drop down the bullets of anger; it destroys at the speed of light!
Satan never wastes a fiery dart on an area covered in armor.
Language ... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.
Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit.
She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.
...you do violence with your words if you force them - art is given - the words received, moment by moment from unseen hands - call it a Muse ...
We wrapped our dreams in words and patterned the words so that they would live forever, unforgettable.