Right Words Quotes:

The right word fitly spoken is a precious rarity.

- John Boyle O'Reilly

topic: Right Words, Rarity

I revise and revise and revise. I'm not even sure "revise" is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it's done.

- Peter Orner

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Stories, Done, Right Words

But that was just it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned.

- Terry Pratchett

topic: Hate, Force, Right Words

There is no calamity that right words will not begin to redress

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

topic: Redress, Calamity, Right Words

I am not as concerned about choosing the right words as I am in letting the words flow naturally.

- Gerry Spence

topic: Flow, Concerned, Right Words

One word is worth a thousand pictures. If it's the right word.

- Edward Abbey

source: Edward Abbey (1984). “Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside”, p.11, Macmillan

topic: Thousand, One Word, Right Words

We Irish had the right word on the tip of our tongue, but the imperialist got at that. What should trip off it we trip over.

- Brigid Brophy

source: Brigid Brophy (1969). “In Transit”, Heretic Books

topic: Tongue, Should, Right Words

Aren't you, uh..." Clary searched for the right word. "Reproducing?

- Cassandra Clare

source: Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

topic: Reproducing, Right Words, Clarissa Fray

The use of the right word, the exact word, is the difference between a pencil with a sharp point and a thick crayon.

- Peter Marshall

topic: Differences, Use, Crayon, Right Words

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

- Mark Twain

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Book, Creative Writing, Story Writers

The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.

- George Eliot

topic: Our Actions, Action, Communicate, Right Words

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

- Jack Kerouac

source: "Some of the Dharma". Book by Jack Kerouac, 1997.

topic: Life, Wisdom, Writing, Great Writing, Inspiring Writing

A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a book or newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.

- Mark Twain

source: Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.521, Courier Corporation

topic: Spiritual, Powerful, Book, Right Words

It is with words as with sunbeams-the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

- Robert Southey

source: "A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern" ed. by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company, (p. 52), 1908.

topic: Happiness, Sunbeams, Deeper, Language Words, Writing By Writers

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

source: Towne v. Eisner (1918)

topic: Life, Color, Skins, Right Words

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

- Rudyard Kipling

source: Speech, 14 Feb. 1923, in The Times 15 Feb. 1923

topic: Powerful, Reading, Health, Using Words, Languages Communication

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

source: 1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

topic: Honesty, Integrity, Writing, Creative Writing, Power Of Words

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

- Mark Twain

topic: Kindness, Book, Communication, Fear Of Public Speaking, Speaking In Public

God sends people into our lives just when we need them, to say the right word, His word, just when we need it.

- W. A. Criswell

topic: People, Needs, Right Words

Actually ideas are everywhere. It's the paperwork, that is, sitting down and thinking them into a coherent story, trying to find just the right words, that can and usually does get to be labor.

- Fred Saberhagen

topic: Thinking, Ideas, Trying, Paperwork, Right Words

Writing well isn't just a question of winsome expression, but of having found something big and true to say and having found the right words to say it in, of having seen something large and having found the right words to say it small, small enough to enter an individual mind so that the strong ideas of what the words are saying sound like sweet reason.

- Adam Gopnik

topic: Sweet, Strong, Writing, Winsome, Writing Well

There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.

- Orson Scott Card

source: Orson Scott Card (2010). “Ender's Game”, p.90, Macmillan

topic: Inspirational, World, Changing The World, Rearranging, Enders Game

So in writing, there is always a right word, and every other than that is wrong. There is no beauty in words except in their collocation. The effect of a fanciful word misplaced, is like that of a horn of exquisite polish growing on a human head.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1992). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.376, University of Missouri Press

topic: Writing, Growing, Horns, Misplaced, Right Words

Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

topic: Fall, Communication, Words You Speak, Presentation Skills, Speaking In Public

You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.

- Nicholas Sparks

source: FaceBook post by Nicholas Sparks from Aug 07, 2013

topic: Inspirational, I Hate You, Judging, Judging You, People In Your Life

Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.

- Edward Thorndike

topic: Wise, Fall, Color, Right Words

Don't worry about having the right words; worry more about having the right heart. It's not eloquence he seeks, just honesty.

- Max Lucado

topic: Faith, Honesty, Heart, Clean Heart, Keep The Faith

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

- Ingrid Bergman

topic: Love, Humor, Kissing, Husband Love, Just Kiss Me

Carve every word before you let it fall.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

topic: Fall, Communication, Thinking, Presentation Skills, Speaking In Public

Mark Twain said, The right word is to the nearly right word as lightning is to the lightning bug. Fill your book with lightning.

- Robert Littell

topic: Book, Bugs, Lightning, Right Words

The right word at the right time helps you make sense of the world. It helps, but sometimes not a lot.

- Chris Lynch

source: Chris Lynch (2012). “Angry Young Man”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

topic: World, Helping, Sometimes, Right Words

Style means the right word. The rest matters little.

- Jules Renard

topic: Writing, Mean, Style, Right Words

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.

- Catherine Drinker Bowen

topic: Healing, Writing, Realization, Writing Life, Right Words

Words matter, and the right words matter most of all. In the end they're all that remain of us.

- John Birmingham

topic: Wisdom, Matter, Ends, All That Remains, Words Matter

I have the right ideas, but my words are too... complicated. I need to simplify them, so that people won't get lost in the dark when they see and hear them. I want them to shine like beacons of light in a world of overly complicated darkness. One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

- Jack Kerouac

topic: Writing, Dark, Simple, Right Ideas, Beacons Of Light

It's hard to choose the right word, the right line. This Body Mystery is a small book, but it took me over ten years.

- Chath Piersath

source: Source: www.raintaxi.com

topic: Book, Years, Body, Right Words

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.

- Roddy Doyle

topic: Stories, Might, Matter, Right Words

Fun wouldn't be the right word... it was the most difficult, challenging, physical, extraordinary stretch I've ever had to make, in all those wild regards.

- Uma Thurman

topic: Fun, Challenges, Difficult, Right Words

When a man’s heart is cold and unconcerned about religion – when his hands are never employed in doing God’s work – when his feet are not familiar with God’s ways – when his tongue is seldom or never used in prayer and praise – when his eyes are blind to the beauty of the kingdom of heaven – when his mind is full of the world, and has no room for spiritual things – when these marks are to be found in a man the word of the Bible is the right word to use about him, and that word is, ‘Dead.’

- J. C. Ryle

source: J.C. Ryle (2015). “Old Paths: Being Plain Statements on Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity”, p.90, Ravenio Books

topic: Spiritual, Prayer, Heart, Right Words

I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.

- Chelsea Clinton

topic: Thinking, Important, Language, Right Words

I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I'm sick or well. There must be 600 finished words — not almost right words. Before you ask, I'll tell you that yes, I do write 600 at the top of my pad every day, and I keep track of the word count to insure I reach my quota daily — without fail.

- Arthur Hailey

topic: Writing, Weather, Track, Output, Right Words

All these questions about do you want to be king? It's not a question of wanting to be, it's something I was born into and it's my duty. . . . Wanting is not the right word. But those stories about me not wanting to be king are all wrong.

- Prince William

topic: Kings, Stories, Want, Right Words

I like playing around with the words; I love it when I feel like I've picked the exact right word to describe whatever it is I'm trying to describe

- Margaret Haddix

topic: Trying, Feels, Playing Around, Right Words

A writer who has never explored words, who has never searched, seeded, sieved, sifted through his knowledge and memory...dictiona ries, thesaurus, poems, favorite paragraphs, to find the right word, is like someone owning a gold mine who has never mined it.

- Rumer Godden

topic: Memories, Gold, Thesaurus, Right Words

What's your favorite book?' is a question that is usually only asked by children and banking identity-verification services--and favorite isn't, anyway, the right word to describe the relationship a reader has with a particularly cherished book. Most serious readers can point to one book that has a place in their life like the one that 'Middlemarch' has in mine.

- Rebecca Mead

source: Rebecca Mead (2014). “My Life in Middlemarch”, p.184, Broadway Books

topic: Children, Book, Identity, Favorite Book, Middlemarch

Of what help is anyone who can only be approached with the right words?

- Elizabeth Bibesco

source: Elizabeth Bibesco (1951). “Haven: Short Stories, Poems, and Aphorisms”

topic: Helping, Right Words

It's an unnecessary burden to try to think of words and also worry at the same time whether they're the right words.

- Peter Elbow

source: Peter Elbow (1998). “Writing without Teachers”, p.5, Oxford University Press

topic: Thinking, Worry, Trying, Right Words

A handwritten letter carries a lot of risk. It's a one-sided conversation that reveals the truth of the writer. Furthermore, the writer is not there to see the reaction of the person he writes to, so there's a great unknown to the process that requires a leap of faith. The writer has to choose the right words to express his sentences, and then, once he has sealed the envelope, he has to place those thoughts in the hands of someone else, trusting that the feelings will be delivered, and that the recipient will understand the writer's intent. How childish to think that could be easy.

- Adriana Trigiani

source: "Brava, Valentine: A Novel". Book by Adriana Trigiani, March 16, 2010.

topic: Writing, Thinking, Hands, Great Unknown, Handwritten Letters

On matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. If names are not right, words are misused. When words are misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a gentleman must be ready to put names in speech, to put words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words.

- Confucius

topic: Moving, Hands, Law, Misused, Right Words

The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. . . . Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into you as life, place yourself in the full center of that flood, then you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

source: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle (1841). “Essays”, p.139

topic: Life, Perfect, Effort, Right Words

Do not talk to me of Archimedes' lever. He was an absent-minded person with a mathematical imagination. Mathematics commands my respect, but I have no use for engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.

- Joseph Conrad

source: Joseph Conrad “The Complete Works of Joseph Conrad”, Library of Alexandria

topic: Moving, Giving, Imagination, Absent Minded, Right Words

It might be something as simple as saying the right word to the right person at the right time-and that could change the course of history. You never really know. But the whole thing is to work at the process of being in sync with the universe, so that everything will align at the proper time so that you can deliver that which is your life mission. And that's why we're here as individuals. And then there's our contribution to the collective. It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

- Herbie Hancock

topic: Simple, Musician, Might, Proper Time, Right Words

Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life...

- Jeffrey Eugenides

source: Jeffrey Eugenides (2003). “Middlesex”, p.217, A&C Black

topic: Disappointment, Regret, Believe, Right Words

There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word...

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

topic: Listening, Guidance, Right Words

I found I'm quite happy working on a sentence for an hour or more, searching for the right phrase, the right word. I compare it to the work of a stone cutter - chipping away at the raw material until it's just right, or as right as you can get it.

- Harriet Doerr

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Writing, Raw Materials, Phrases, Chipping Away, Right Words

I decided that what I really wanted to do was to make my writing in history deeper, if that's the right word to use. And that is what I did.

- Peter Gay

topic: Writing, Use, Deeper, Right Words