Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"-...
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Thus the word "inhuman", in this book's title, refers to the unconscionable and unsuccessful goal of bestializing (in the form of pets as well as beasts of burden) a class of human beings.
To care about words, to have a stake in what is written, to believe in the power of books - this overwhelms the rest, and beside it one's life becomes very small.
The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become--and such lucidity is a form of joy.
Her attachment to language was earthy, physical, and immediate. Pretty words you could eat.
If you have a business website, make it stickier; redo the merchandising often and try new things until you hit the right homepage... then try and beat that. The most important audience drivers on the Internet are paid search and key word optimizatio...
I remember learning new words, trying to figure out what common things like cider, finding myself upset that my parents couldn't help me understand this new culture, that it was up to me to interpret for them as well as myself.
He is forced to coin words himself, and, taking his pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the people of Babel did in the beginning), so to crush them together that a brand new word in the end drops out.
Vinny Gambini: [Bill keeps trying to thank Vinny, but just runs out of words and hugs him] Bill, listen. Take your time, pick the right words, get back to New York, give me a call.
That was when I first observed a phenomenon I now call the "New York Slide": you offer your words to try to communicate and connect with someone, but your words just hit a brick wall the person has erected to ward off human contact- the words slide d...
We lie under the sheet after making love, speaking of loneliness relieved in a book relived in a book so on that page the clot and fissure of it appears words of a man in pain a naked word entering the clot a hand grasping through bars: deliverance W...
Animal Mother: Freedom? [scoffs] Animal Mother: You'd better flush out your head, new guy. This isn't about freedom; this is a slaughter. If I'm gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is "poontang".
... Have you considered that maybe this is the birth of a new world, that what happens next is a golden opportunity to change the nature of man in a fundamental way?” “Those are brave words, Tiresias.” “New parents can’t afford to be anythi...
Oh no," I said, because if our life is just one endless song about hope and regret, then "oh no" is apparently that song's chorus, the words we always return to.
I dread the beginning of her new life more than words can tell, but I see some hope for her if she travels - none if she remains at home.
Spelling is very easy to practice yourself whereas signing is not. So I would sit on the subway riding around New York and I would spell whatever I would see. When I watched a movie I would spell words as they came up.
To use a word I never thought I'd apply to myself, I've sort of become a Luddite with regard to information. Where everyone else is getting their Twitter feeds from 'The New York Times' and their 'Huffington Post' emails, I live in a little bit of a ...
I can only write new words at my desk, the one I've owned for 25 years. When we moved to our new house I designed my office around it. I've written everything I've ever written at this desk.
Here is the essence of mankind's creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatoza attacking an ovum. It might be argued that the Siamese-twin inf...
A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion.
