Spoken Word Quotes - Page 2

• The words that matter always stay.

  David Levithan

  Meaningful, Important, Unspoken Words

  David Levithan (2008). “The Realm of Possibility”, p.143, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• Comedy, although it is not one of the fine arts - it's a vulgar art, it's one of the people's arts, it's the spoken word, the writing that goes into it is an art form - it's certainly artistry.

  George Carlin

  Art, Writing, People

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• Moreover, the whole purpose of God's mighty acts is to bring man to know Him by faith; and Scripture knows no foundation for faith but the spoken word of God, inviting our trust in Him on the basis of what He has done for us.

  J. I. Packer

  Men, Foundation, Purpose

  J. I. Packer (1958). “"Fundamentalism" and the Word of God”, p.92, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• And there's wordplay and there's rhythms and you have to be able to get the poetry out of it. You have to be able to sell my jokes. And if you're talking about somebody like Sam Jackson, they do that. Sam Jackson can do that. Sam Jackson can turn it into the spoken word that it was always meant to be and he can sell my jokes. And Christopher Walken can do it and a lot of people can do it, all right.

  Quentin Tarantino

  Talking, People, Able

  "Pulp And Circumstance: Tarantino Rewrites History". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. August 27, 2009.

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• To me, presentations are the most powerful device. You can't really name a movement that didn't start with the spoken word.

  Nancy Duarte

  Powerful, Names, Movement

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• I take my spoken-word stuff extremely seriously because I feel like that's true writing, true lyricism.

  Nick Cannon

  Writing, Stuff, Feels

  "Nick Cannon Gives Us An Exclusive Look Into The Making Of The New ‘Wild ‘N Out’ Mixtape". Interview with Miz Kane, thesource.com. August 2, 2016.

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• The spoken word community was significant in making me want to write accessible and urgent poems. Bob Holman, in particular, was an impressive figure.

  Denise Duhamel

  Writing, Community, Bob

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The spoken word is never really effective unless it is backed up by a life, but it is also true that the living deed is never adequate without the support the spoken word can provide.

  D. Elton Trueblood

  Support, Adequate, Deeds

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• I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words — the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture.

  Martha Graham

  Mean, Mouths, Gestures

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

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• Those who overcome satan will be required to use the power of the spoken Word.

  T. B. Joshua

  Overcoming, Use, Satan

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• Paintings may not have nearly the power to convert people that the printed or spoken word has, but each man has his part to play in the human and divine drama - some persons just a few lines, others whole pages. To refuse to play one's role at all is not the answer. It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

  William Kurelek

  Drama, Men, Light

  William Kurelek, Joan Murray (1983). “Kurelek's vision of Canada”, McClelland & Stewart

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• To be a good storyteller one must be gloriously alive. It is not possible to kindle fresh fires from burned-out embers. I have noticed that the best of the traditional storytellers whom I have heard have been those who live close to the heart of things-to the earth, the sea, wind and weather. They have been those who knew solitude, silence. They have been given unbroken time in which to feel deeply, to reach constantly for understanding. They have come to know the power of the spoken word. These storytellers have been sailors and peasants, wanderers and fisherman.

  Ruth Sawyer

  Heart, Wind, Sea

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• What if it turns out there really are witches and vampires and werewolves living right here alongside us? After all, what better disguise could there be than to get your image enshrined in the culture of the mass media? Anything that's described in artistic terms and shown in the movies stops being frightening and mysterious. For real horror you need the spoken word, you need an old grandpa sitting on a bench, scaring the grandkids in the evening.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Real, Media, Living Right

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• My falling in love with spoken word poetry definitely came out of that time period where all the adults around me were failing to supply me with any answers. Everyone was too busy dealing with things that were more important. I was pretty lost and invisible. And all of a sudden, this world opened up where I could get on stage and perform in front of my peers. People would listen to me and see me, and people would say, "That thing you created was important." And that was so validating and necessary at that specific moment.

  Sarah Kay

  Falling In Love, People, Important

  Source: saseye.com

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• God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds. He spoke a Book and lives in His spoken words, constantly speaking His words and causing the power of them to persist across the years.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Distance, Book, Writing

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• Oh! for this baptism of fire! when every spoken word for Jesus shall be a thunderbolt, and every prayer shall bring forth a mighty flood.

  Abbott Eliot Kittredge

  Jesus, Prayer, Fire

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p.22, 1895.

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• In the speech sound wave, one word runs into the next seamlessly; there are no little silences between spoken words the way there are white spaces between written words. We simply hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the end of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.

  Steven Pinker

  Running, White, Space

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language”, p.171, Penguin UK

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• Comedy was something I picked up trying to perfect my art through spoken word. I got on YouTube just to show off my poetry, and then people thought I was funny, so I ran with it.

  Spoken Reasons

  Art, People, Perfect

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• I verily believe that the kingdom of God advances more on spoken words than it does on essays written and read; on words, that is, in which the present feeling and thought of the teaching mind break into natural and forceful expression.

  Richard Salter Storrs

  Teaching, Believe, Expression

  Richard Salter Storrs (1875). “Conditions of success in preaching without notes, 3 lects”, p.61

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• The unspoken word never does harm.

  Lajos Kossuth

  Silence, Doe, Unspoken Words

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• The first time I ever performed spoken word poetry in front of a big crowd, it totally failed. It ended, people barely clapped...in retrospect the poem was terrible. And for a while I thought this was something I would never do again. And then I realized that, in my 17-year-old head, that was the worst it could have been. And it wasn't that bad - [because] from there, it could only get better. And I think that failure kind of freed me up to explore and not be afraid of failing again.

  Phil Kay

  Thinking, Years, People

  Source: saseye.com

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• High school was the first time I ever saw spoken word poetry. The first place I ever performed a poem was at my school, so in some ways it was the nucleus of how it all started. For me I think high school was a period of trying to figure myself out, and poetry was one of the ways I did that, and was a very helpful avenue to try to do that.

  Phil Kay

  School, Thinking, Trying

  Source: saseye.com

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• When you are writing a spoken word poem, the tools you're working with are your voice, your body, how it's going to sound to someone when you're saying it out loud. Which is different from when you're writing it on the page. That toolbox becomes how does this look visually on the page, how does this read among pages, how is this in relation to poems that are before it or after it. I don't think one is better or more successful than the other. You've just gotta think about "what are the tools I'm using, and how are they most effective in this form?"

  Phil Kay

  Writing, Successful, Thinking

  Source: saseye.com

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• There is an intelligence factor that works with the spoken word. With words, you have to understand meaning and nuances and things like that. You have to be able to relate...but with music it's just music.

  Tommy Chong

  Able, Nuance, Understand Me

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• We are in love with the word. We are proud of it. The word precedes the formation of the state. The word comes to us from every avatar of early human existence. As writers, we are obliged more than others to keep our lives attached to the primitive power of the word. From India, out of the Vedas, we still hear: On the spoken word, all the gods depend, all beasts and men; in the world live all creatures...The word is the name of the divine world.

  Norman Mailer

  Men, Names, Vedas

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