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”

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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

  Marshall McLuhan

  Country, Usa, America

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• 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.

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• 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

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• Science fiction is a field of writing where, month after month, every printed word implies to hundreds of thousands of people: 'There is change. Look, today's fantastic story is tomorrow's fact.

  A. E. van Vogt

  Writing, People, Looks

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• 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

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• Nothing was more valuable than the printed word.

  Margaret Haddix

  Valuable, Printed

  "Among the Brave".

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• 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

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• I feel like I'm addicted to the printed word.

  Paula Danziger

  Feels, Printed

  Paula Danziger (2006). “The Cat Ate My Gymsuit”, p.18, Penguin

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• I have become an enthusiast for the printed word again. I have to be that, I now understand, because I want to be a character in all of my works. I can do that in print. In a movie, somehow, the author always vanishes.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Character, Want, Can Do

  "Between Time and Timbuktu". Movie script by Kurt Vonnegut et al. Preface, 1972.

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• For we let our young men and women go out unarmed in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Teaching, Reading, Mean

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• If I looked at some of these pieces as if this project was not spoken-word but just short anthology, I probably would have fussed with some of the sentences, you know? Syllabication and prosody and such crap. Because the printed word is etched in stone. But for reading purposes I accepted this book of texts in the manner in which I wrote them, no need to fuss. Most of the shorter stuff was written as poetry. Meaning lots of white space on the page.

  Richard Meltzer

  Book, Reading, White

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Nothing translates worse than comedy into the printed word.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Comedy, Translate, Printed

  Source: brightestyoungthings.com

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• I am addicted to the printed word, and my idea of a good time is a good book.

  Julianne Malveaux

  Book, Ideas, Good Times

  Source: www.theskanner.com

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• I am no fan of books. And chances are, if you're reading this, you and I share a healthy skepticism about the printed word. Well, I want you to know that this is the first book I've ever written, and I hope it's the first book you've ever read. Don't make a habit of it.

  Stephen Colbert

  Book, Reading, Healthy

  "I Am America (And So Can You!)". Book by Stephen Colbert, 2007.

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