Pretty Words Quotes

• During the whole month that negroes were being beaten by police and washed down the sewer with water hoses, Kennedy and - and King was in jail begging for the federal government to intervene, Kennedy's reply was, "No federal statutes have been violated." And it was only when the negroes erupted that Kennedy come on the television with all his old pretty words.

  Malcolm X

  Kings, Jail, Government

  Interview with Robert Penn Warren, whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu. June 2, 1964.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Infidelity is such a pretty word, so light and delicate. Whereas the act itself is dark and thick with guilt, betrayal, confusion, pain, and (okay) sometimes enormous pleasure.

  Cynthia Heimel

  Pain, Betrayal, Dark

  Cynthia Heimel (2002). “If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?!”, p.161, Grove Press

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• An election marks the end of the affair; it puts paid to the seduction of the many by the few. Pretty words, fulsome promises. We wind up married, but to whom, to what? We cannot always predict with certainty the future leader from the winning candidate. Some men grow in the job; others are diminished by its demands and its grandeur.

  Anna Quindlen

  Jobs, Winning, Men

  4 Copy quote

• The same old hypocrisy. Life is a fight, and the strongest wins. All civilization does is hide the blood and cover up the hate with pretty words!

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Hate, Fighting, Winning

  4 Copy quote

• Lofty talk about 'social justice' or 'fairness' boils down to greatly expanded powers for politicians, since those pretty words have no concrete definition. They are a blank check for creating disparities in power that dwarf disparities in income - and are far more dangerous.

  Thomas Sowell

  Dwarves, Creating, Justice

  40 Copy quote

• Women know the way to rear up children (to be just). They know a simple, merry, tender knack of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, and stringing pretty words that make no sense. And kissing full sense into empty words.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Mom, Mother, Baby

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1871). “Poetical Works”, p.321

  64 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pretty words, as pretty women, wrinkle up and die.

  Charles Bukowski

  Wrinkles, Pretty Woman, Dies

  10 Copy quote

• If I had a soul I sold it for pretty words If I had a body I used it up spurting my essence Allen Ginsberg warns you dont follow my path to extinction

  Allen Ginsberg

  Essence, Soul, Body

  10 Copy quote

• She dealt her pretty words like Blades -- How glittering they shone -- And every One unbared a Nerve Or wantoned with a Bone -- She never deemed -- she hurt -- That -- is not Steel's Affair -- A vulgar grimace in the Flesh -- How ill the Creatures bear -- To Ache is human -- not polite -- The Film upon the eye Mortality's old Custom -- Just locking up -- to Die.

  Emily Dickinson

  Hurt, Eye, Steel

  Emily Dickinson (2012). “Emily Dickinson: Everyman's Poetry”, p.83, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lady, lady, never start Conversation toward your heart; Keep your pretty words serene; Never murmur what you mean. Show yourself, by word and look, Swift and shallow as a brook. Be as cool and quick to go As a drop of April snow; Be as delicate and gay As a cherry flower in May. Lady, lady, never speak Of the tears that burn your cheek- She will never win him, whose Words had shown she feared to lose. Be you wise and never sad, You will get your lovely lad. Never serious be, nor true, And your wish will come to you- And if that makes you happy, kid, You'll be the first it ever did.

  Dorothy Parker

  Wise, Flower, Heart

  Dorothy Parker, “The Lady's Reward”

  138 Copy quote

  Show source