Word

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There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.


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 – Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
 – The Poem That Took the Place of a Mountain [1952], st. I

“Be careful what you say—you may have to eat your words.”

I don’t think so much about eating my words as about wearing them. When someone sees me, the words come back to haunt like a miasma around me. No matter how colourful my dress, bad words turn everything grey and muddy brown.

Words are like prodigies. They may want to stay inside where it is safe and warm but they'll never live if they never play outside...and find themselves lost in the cold.

on Mar 22nd 2001, 02:07:31, Natasha Jordan wrote the following about

word

Think how much acceptance Mary showed when she said:

»Let it be done to me according to thy word.«

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And how much courage.

My favourite word in the English language is »language«. However, if you gave me a slightly larger set of words to choose from I might have more difficulty expressing a preference.

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Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

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 – Horace (65-8 B.C.)
 – Epistles, bk. I, epistle xviii, l. 71

Which is more useful to you: a dictionary that tells you how to use a word or a dictionary that tells you how a word is used?

A word has the power to define, to bind, to create, to destroy. Truely, a poet has power undreamt of by kings.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was 32 bits.

'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word, and caution is the act.'

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We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.

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 – Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
 – Sand and Foam [1926]

What I feel for you,
I can't put in words,
language won't hold
my desire.

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds.

LI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
(trans. Edward Fitzgerald, 1st ed.)