Spoken Word Quotes - Page 5

• When I was in school, I was very much into just sports, mostly basketball, and didn't really see myself as much of a student. But once I got into college, I figured I wasn't going to be play beyond college. I started to think what was I going to do, since I wouldn't be able to make a living with basketball. There were a couple of things I liked to do. I wrote poetry, spoken word mostly.

  Matt de la Pena

  Basketball, Sports, Couple

  Source: therumpus.net

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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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• I appreciate the written word and spoken word more, but Atonement sort of established so much of me. It was a character that didn't really speak, and I found that a lot of the roles I was gravitating toward after that were kind of nonverbal.

  Saoirse Ronan

  Character, Appreciate, Roles

  "The legend: Jodie Foster". Interview with Saoirse Ronan, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 23, 2016.

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• Fifty years ago, the spoken word reigned, but during the last fifty years, the power has gone over to pictures.

  Pipilotti Rist

  Years, Fifty, Lasts

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• Khairani Barokka is a writer, spoken-word poet, visual artist and performer whose work has a strong vein of activism, particularly around disability, but also how this intersects with, for example, issues of gender - she's campaigned for reproductive rights in her native Indonesian, and is currently studying for a PhD in disability and visual cultures at Goldsmiths. She's written a feminist, environmentalist, anti-colonialist narrative poem, with tactile artwork and a Braille translation. How could I not publish that?

  Deborah Smith

  Strong, Artist, Rights

  Source: thequietus.com

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• I like spoken-word as much as the singing word.

  Loren Mazzacane Connors

  Singing

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• First it must be known that only a spoken word or a conventional sign is an equivocal or univocal term; therefore a mental contentor concept is, strictly speaking, neither equivocal nor univocal.

  William of Ockham

  Firsts, Language, Term

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• I think you can perform any poem. But what I believe is that the best examples of spoken word poetry I've ever seen, are spoken word poems that, when you see them, you're aware of the fact they need to be performed. That there's something about that poem that you would not be able to understand if you were just reading it on a piece of paper.

  Sarah Kay

  Believe, Reading, Thinking

  Source: saseye.com

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• Oh, he was just angry, we tell ourselves when someone blurts out something he later apologizes for. But a word, once spoken, lingers forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish in spite of all our efforts to preserve them. What we would lose persists, lodged in our minds, and what we would keep is lost to water, moths, moss.

  Margaret George

  Water, Forever, Effort

  Margaret George (2011). “The Memoirs of Cleopatra”, p.934, Pan Macmillan

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• He bent to put his cheek against hers. His breath against her ear made her shudder with each deliberately spoken word. "I have wanted to do this," he said, "every moment of every hour of every day that I have been with you since the day I met you.

  Cassandra Clare

  Ears, Moments, Hours

  Cassandra Clare (2013). “The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess”, p.729, Simon and Schuster

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• The written word endures, the spoken word disappears

  Neil Postman

  Disappear, Endure, Written Word

  Neil Postman (2005). “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”, p.21, Penguin

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• Our priorities are most visible in how we use our time. Someone has said, “Three things never come back—the spent arrow, the spoken word, and the lost opportunity.” We cannot recycle or save the time allotted to us each day. With time, we have only one opportunity for choice, and then it is gone forever.

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Opportunity, Arrows, Priorities

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• The fact that we do not speak it but sing it only expresses the fact that our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say, that the burden of our song goes far beyond all human words.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Song, Want, Facts

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.43, SCM Press

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• I have spoken words of hope. But only of hope. Hope is not victory.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Victory, Words Of Hope

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings”, p.489, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• [Comedian Jerry Seinfeld was nominated for a Grammy for his spoken-word children's album] Halloween... Don't Give Up on Me.

  Jamie Lee Curtis

  Children, Giving Up, Halloween

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• People around you are quick to read your attitude of thought toward them. Inner thoughts and feelings are communicated in ways other than by the spoken word.

  Grenville Kleiser

  Attitude, People, Feelings

  Grenville Kleiser (1917). “Inspiration and Ideals: Thoughts for Every Day”

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• But perhaps, after so much talk and fighting, unspoken words do create a silence in whose gentleness the survivors of good and bad can sleep easy.

  Miljenko Jergovic

  Sleep, Fighting, Silence

  Miljenko Jergović (1997). “Sarajevo Marlboro”, Penguin Uk

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• Through his spoken word, man is continually making laws for himself.

  Florence Scovel Shinn

  Men, Law, Affirmation

  Florence Scovel Shinn (2016). “The Complete Collection (with the book "The Power of the Spoken Word")”, p.19, Florence Scovel Shinn

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• Acting for me was the gospel, the love of the spoken word.

  Jeanne Moreau

  Acting

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• Animals do feel like us, also joy, love, fear and pain but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to take their part and continue to resist the people who profit by them, who slaughter them and who torture them.

  Denis de Rougemont

  Pain, Animal, People

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• The first spoken word poem I ever wrote was when I was 14 and I wrote it because I was accidentally signed up for a teen poetry slam. Because I loved poetry I said that I'd try it out.

  Sarah Kay

  Trying, Firsts, Slam

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• Books are love letters (or apologies) passed between us, adding a layer of conversation beyond our spoken words.

  Donalyn Miller

  Book, Apology, Layers

  Donalyn Miller (2010). “The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child”, p.9, John Wiley & Sons

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• I grew up in the spoken-word community. Before everybody had a home studio, or before we could get booked for shows, open mics were the only way to be heard by other people. It really gave me a chance to develop as a performer. Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people.

  Macklemore

  Reading, Home, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• If he thinks he would harm Mirabelle, he would back away. But he does not yet understand when and how people are hurt. He doesn't understand the subtleties of slights and pains, that it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart.

  Steve Martin

  Hurt, Pain, Heart

  "Shopgirl". Book by Steve Martin, October 11, 2000.

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• Compared to the spoken word, a picture is a pitiful thing, indeed.

  Charles Osgood

  Pitiful

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