Adjectives Quotes - Page 7

• To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.

  Gore Vidal

  Novelists, Nouns, Today

  Gore Vidal (2007). “Point to Point Navigation”, p.2, Vintage

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• Ardent, intelligent, sweet, sensitive, cultivated, erudite. These are the adjectives of praise in an androgynous world. Those who consider them epithets of shame or folly ought not to be trusted with leadership, for they will be men hot for power and revenge, certain of right and wrong.

  Carolyn Heilbrun

  Leadership, Sweet, Revenge

  Carolyn G. Heilbrun (1974). “Toward a recognition of androgyny”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• But the adjectives change,” said Jimmy. “Nothing’s worse than last year’s adjectives.

  Margaret Atwood

  Years, Lasts, Said

  Margaret Atwood (2014). “The MaddAddam Trilogy Bundle: The Year of the Flood; Oryx & Crake; MaddAddam”, p.247, Anchor

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• I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.

  Melina Marchetta

  Girl, Sweet, Silly

  Melina Marchetta (2007). “Saving Francesca”, p.37, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• I lived in Chicago for a few years and got a sense of - kind of that broad-shouldered, windy, um, stern, Midwestern, warm-slash-passive aggressive, wonderful - every adjective I can think of, very cold.

  Amy Poehler

  Thinking, Years, Chicago

  "Amy Poehler: Playing Politics, But Only On Television". NPR Interview, www.npr.org. October 20, 2011.

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• I have become an adjective. There is something called a Rovian-style of campaigning and it's meant as an insult. One columnist said it consists mainly of throwing mud until it sticks. One prominent blogger described the elements of a textbook Rovian race as fear-based, smear-based and anything goes.

  Karl Rove

  Race, Style, Elements

  "Karl Rove Calls Out Stupid Journalists Who Believed the Worst About Him". www.newsbusters.org. March 8, 2010.

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• The supermoon is a 16-inch pizza compared with a 15-inch pizza. It's a slightly bigger moon; I ain't using the adjective 'supermoon.'

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Moon, Inches, Bigger

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• I was doing a terrible thing in using the very books you clung to, to rebut you on every hand, on every point! What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and then they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives.

  Ray Bradbury

  Book, Thinking, Hands

  "Fahrenheit 451". Book by Ray Bradbury, 1953.

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• What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Men, Vocabulary, Should Have

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• Especially among Christians in positions of wealth and power, the idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus' commandments as stated therein has been replaced by a curious process of logic. According to this process, people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ, and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective "Christian".

  Wendell Berry

  Christian, Jesus, Reading

  Wendell Berry (2005). “Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ's Teachings about Love, Compassion, and Forgiveness”, p.3, Counterpoint Press

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• I've got an adjective that just fits you.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Fit

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “This Side of Paradise”, p.54, Xist Publishing

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• I was horribly bookish, to the point of coming right out and saying it, which I knew was not socially acceptable. I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler.

  David Levithan

  People, Used, Teetotalers

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.11, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler.

  Rachel Cohn

  People, Used, Teetotalers

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.11, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Human, Allen, is an adjective, and its use as a noun is in itself regrettable.

  William S. Burroughs

  Use, Nouns, Humans

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader”, p.19, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.

  Ezra Pound

  Doe, Use, Superfluous

  Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Jonathan Stalling, Lucas Klein (2008). “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry: A Critical Edition”, p.9, Fordham Univ Press

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• I can't tell you why I keep getting asked to play gay characters, but I never really considered 'gay' as an adjective, as a playable thing. Maybe it's an element of the character, but it just describes a preference.

  John Michael Higgins

  Character, Gay, Play

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• I love that moment in writing when language falls short. There is something more there. A larger body. Even by the failure of words I begin to detect its dimensions. As I work the prose, shift the verbs, look for new adjectives, a different rhythm, syntax, something new begins to come to the surface.

  Susan Griffin

  Fall, Writing, Different

  Susan Griffin (1996). “The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender and Society”, Anchor

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• Amazing, powerful, inspirational - those adjectives might make me sound like a fawning fan, but REWORK is that useful. Be prepared for a new feeling of clarity and motivation.

  Kathy Sierra

  Motivation, Powerful, Feelings

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• Prudent readers will do well to hold Three Weeks at arm's length, unless they want to be cut by flying adjectives.

  Elinor Glyn

  Cutting, Flying, Want

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• Many ideas have been transformed by adding one crucial adjective-women's bank, women's music, women's studies, women's caucus. That adjective did more than change a phrase. It implied a lot of new content: child care, flexible work hours, new standards of creditworthiness, new symbolism, new lyrics.

  Gloria Steinem

  Children, Ideas, Symbolism

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• All my adult life I have been searching for the right adjective to describe my father's peculiarly aggressive comic style. I recently settled on 'defamatory.

  Martin Amis

  Father, Style, Adults

  Martin Amis (2017). “The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986-2016”, p.120, Random House

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• But why wasn't I born, alas, in an age of Adjectives; why can one no longer write of silver-shedding Tears and moon-tailed Peacocks, of eloquent Death, of the Negro and star-enameled Night?

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Death, Stars, Writing

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• Eschew all those beastly adjectives.

  Roald Dahl

  Beastly

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• A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the hightest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.

  Gore Vidal

  Self, Concern For Others, Greed

  "Screening History (Growing Up With Gore Vidal)". Book by Gore Vidal (p. 24), 1994.

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• When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.

  Rachel Held Evans

  Beautiful, Voice, Cacophony

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