As has become my habit, here are some Saturday quotes to consider. Specifically, today, writers on words:
- Words are loaded pistols. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre
- Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things. ~ William Gass
- Words are…awkward instruments and they will be laid aside eventually, probably sooner than we think. ~ William Burroughs
- Words are an albatross to a writer–heavy, hopeless, fateful things. One writes to make words mean something new. ~ Joy Williams
- Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity. ~ Evelyn Waugh
- Words are like leaves, and when they abound / Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. ~ Alexander Pope
- Every word is like an unnecessary strain on silence and nothingness. ~ Samuel Beckett
- The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightening bug. ~ Mark Twain
- For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word. ~ Catherine Drinker Bowen
- All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time. ~ Ernest Hemingway
I am likely–as this post goes up–turning south, considering a return to Maine. Hoping to be at my desk again next week–perhaps with a tale to two to share.
Thanks for reading.