Printed Word Quotes

• If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Printed Books, Offending, Criticism

  Benjamin Franklin (1945). “Autobiographical writings”

  68 Copy quote

  Show source

• We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.

  John Gardner

  Reading, Writing, Pages

  28 Copy quote

• I can't think of anything until I've got printed words in front of me. I never wake up in the middle of the night with a song in my head.

  Elton John

  Song, Night, Thinking

  "Mylo: Would you ever play Glastonbury? Elton: Oh no - I'm too like the Queen Mother". Interview with Myles 'Mylo' MacInnes, www.theguardian.com. February 3, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think the older you are, the more you're going to cling to the printed word as being sacred.

  Buzz Bissinger

  Thinking, Sacred, Printed

  4 Copy quote

• Opinionated writing is always the most difficult... simply because it involves retaining in the cold morning-after crystal of the printed word the burning flow of molten feeling.

  Gavin Lyall

  Morning, Writing, Feelings

  4 Copy quote

• Amid chaos of images, we value coherence. We believe in the printed word. And we believe in clarity. And we believe in immaculate syntax. And in the beauty of the English language.

  William Shawn

  Believe, Syntax, Coherence

  10 Copy quote

• I find I think of myself not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to reach the circus. To visit the circus again, if only in their minds, when they are unable to attend it physically. I relay it through printed words on crumpled newsprint, words that they can read again and again, returning to the circus whenever they wish, regardless of time of day or physical location. Transporting them at will. When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn't it? p.369

  Erin Morgenstern

  Thinking, Magic, Mind

  "The Night Circus". Book by Erin Morgenstern, October 6, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The full impact of printing did not become possible until the adoption of the Bill of Rights in the United States with its guarantee of freedom of the press. A guarantee of freedom of the press in print was intended to further sanctify the printed word and to provide a rigid bulwark for the shelter of vested interests.

  Harold Innis

  Impact, Rights, Adoption

  Harold Innis (1999). “The Bias of Communication”, p.56, University of Toronto Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Imagine what our culture would be like if Americans sold ideas, words, and books with the same creativity we use to sell designer jeans, shampoo, and rock stars. Why, we might end up with people whos attention span for the printed word is longer than the time it takes to read a T-shirt.

  Jim Trelease

  Stars, Book, Creativity

  9 Copy quote

• I am full of admiration for the technologists who have developed all sorts of gadgets for the purpose of improving communications. However, I believe that all these fascinating machines are complementary to, and not substitutes for, books and the printed word.

  Prince Philip

  Believe, Book, Communication

  "Do Books Matter?". Book edited by Brian Baumfield, 1973.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have no interest in the printed word. I would continue to write if there were no writing and no print. I put my words down for a matter of memory. They are more made to be spoken than to be read.

  John Steinbeck

  Memories, Writing, Matter

  4 Copy quote

• My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Book, Writing, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• Ideals jump across the hierarchies of the printed word.

  Dennis Potter

  Hierarchy, Printed, Ideals

  7 Copy quote

• I believe the printed word is more than sacred Beyond the gauge of good or bad The human right to let your soul fly free and naked Above the violence of the fearful and sad

  Andy Partridge

  Believe, Soul, Sacred

  4 Copy quote

• Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.

  Betty Smith

  Children, Reading, Magic

  50 Copy quote

• His eyes beheld beauty not in reality but in the printed word. Standing in the waiting-room, he realized that in his life he had accepted secondary experience -- the experience of reading someone else's thoughts -- over real life.

  Ian Rankin

  Life, Real, Reading

  6 Copy quote

• We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect.

  Mervyn Peake

  Black, Sound, Needs

  Mervyn Peake (2007). “Titus Groan”, p.230, The Overlook Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• America is the only country ever founded on the printed word.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Country, Usa, America

  7 Copy quote

• It is a melancholy illusion of those who write books and articles that the printed word survives. Alas, it rarely does.

  Eric Hobsbawm

  Book, Writing, Doe

  Eric Hobsbawm (2011). “How To Change The World: Tales of Marx and Marxism”, p.126, Hachette UK

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing was more valuable than the printed word.

  Margaret Haddix

  Valuable, Printed

  "Among the Brave".

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves - but what the teachers are themselves.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Leadership, Teacher, Book

  113 Copy quote

• I come alive when I have assisted in bringing out the printed word on the stage, you know, and I enjoy directing plays. It's a tactile process, theatre, unlike a number of other forms of the creative work.

  Wole Soyinka

  Play, Numbers, Creative

  Source: www.nobelprize.org

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

  John McGahern

  Church, Gothic, Poor

  "The whole world in a community" by Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. January 5, 2002.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Photographs have the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable.

  Walter Lippmann

  Real, Yesterday, Imagination

  "Public Opinion". Book by Walter Lippmann, 1922.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The time is long overdue for a massive flooding of the earth with the Book of Mormon for the many reasons which the Lord has given. In this age of electronic media and mass distribution of the printed word, God will hold us accountable if we do not now move the Book of Mormon in a monumental way.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Moving, Book, Media

  8 Copy quote