Syllables Quotes - Page 4

• I tried out the unfamiliar syllables. They fit. They cracked in my ears like a fist through ice.

  Louise Erdrich

  Ice, Ears, Fists

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• At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.

  James Fenton

  Lines, Poetic, Relaxed

  "Down in the deep dark dell" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. August 30, 2002.

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• The basic rhymes in English are masculine, which is to say that the last syllable of the line is stressed: "lane" rhymes with "pain", but it also rhymes with "urbane" since the last syllable of "urbane" is stressed. "Lane" does not rhyme with "methane".

  James Fenton

  Pain, Stressed, Doe

  "Slave to the rhythm" by James Fenton, www.theguardian.com. October 26, 2002.

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• Most people in America want an easy read. I call it McFiction - books which pass right through you without you even digesting them. I don't mean a book that has two-syllable words. I mean chapters you can read in a toilet break. Happy endings. We are more of a TV culture.

  Jodi Picoult

  Book, Mean, Two

  "The great unknown". Interview with Louise France, www.theguardian.com. April 14, 2007.

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• Syllables govern the world.

  George Bernard Shaw

  World

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• There is not, in the Constitution, a syllable that implies that persons, born within the territorial limits of the United States, have allegiance imposed upon them on account of their birth in the country, or that they will be judged by any different rule, on the subject of treason, than persons of foreign birth.

  Lysander Spooner

  Country, United States, Different

  Henry Bool, Lysander Spooner, Edwin C. Walker (1972). “Individualist anarchist pamphlets”

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• To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Life, Death

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 5, sc. 5, l. 16

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• A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.

  Norton Juster

  Smell, Gone, Phantom Tollbooth

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• To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place. In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Book, Fall, Humility

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• They stormed and jeered at one another in long meaningless words of about twenty syllables each.

  C. S. Lewis

  Long, Twenties, Meaningless

  C.S.Lewis (2016). “The Chronicles of Narnia Vol IV: The Silver Chair”, p.60, ENRICH CULTURE GROUP LIMITED

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• Over your breasts of motionless current, over your legs of firmness and water, over the permanence and the pride of your naked hair I want to be, my love, now that the tears are thrown into the raucous baskets where they accumulate, I want to be, my love, alone with a syllable of mangled silver, alone with a tip of your breast of snow.

  Pablo Neruda

  Pride, Hair, Snow

  Pablo Neruda (1990). “Selected Poems”, p.127, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Why are there five syllables in the word “monosyllabic”?

  Steven Wright

  Funny, Humor, Five

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• I want to see thirst In the syllables, Tough fire In the sound; Feel through the dark For the scream.

  Pablo Neruda

  Dark, Fire, Sound

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• I don't mean to be rude—" he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable. "Yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often," Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely.

  J. K. Rowling

  Mean, Rude, Tone

  J.K. Rowling (2015). “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, p.45, Pottermore

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• There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.

  Audrey Niffenegger

  Love, Pregnancy, Writing

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• I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken?

  Octavio Paz

  Stars, Giants, Phrases

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• You're from where?" "Lay'en. It's near Salt Lake City." "Spell that for me." "Um, that would be S-A-L-T-" "No, the other one. The city you're from." "Oh. L-A-Y-T-O-N." "Ah-Lay-ton." That's what I said." "No you didn't. You just said, 'Lay'en.'" "So I did. But just go ahead and pronounce 'aluminum' for me, Mr. British Man. How are you going to defend that piece of insanity? Why don't you spell it and count syllables and see if your al-um-in-ium makes sense whatsoever?" He bowed his head. "Touch...

  Shannon Hale

  Men, Lakes, Cities

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• I want to see the thirst inside the syllables I want to touch the fire in the sound: I want to feel the darkness of the cry. I want words as rough as virgin rocks.” - Verb.

  Pablo Neruda

  Fire, Rocks, Darkness

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• No worries, Atticus. I will snarf surreptitiously. And I should get bacon, because my adverb was two syllables longer than yours, plus a bonus for alliteration." I grinned. "It's a deal. You're the best hound ever.

  Kevin Hearne

  Two, Worry, Bonus

  Kevin Hearne (2014). “The Iron Druid Chronicles 6-Book Bundle: Hounded, Hexed, Hammered, Tricked, Trapped, Hunted”, p.911, Del Rey

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• Once I was lost in a forest. I was so afraid. My blood pounded in my chest and I knew my heart's strength would soon be exhausted. I saved myself without thinking. I grasped the two syllables closest to me, and replaced my heartbeat with your name.

  Anne Michaels

  Heart, Thinking, Blood

  Anne Michaels (2009). “Fugitive Pieces”, p.115, A&C Black

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• Oh contraire, mon frère. I’m able to annoy all adults in ten syllables or less. Sometimes, I don’t even have to speak at all. I just walk into the room and it rankles them.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Adults, Able, Rooms

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2016). “Chronicles of Nick”, p.692, St. Martin's Griffin

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• I find my voice and manage to say those three one-syllable words back to him. Words I haven't uttered in a very, very long time. Words that meant nothing before now.

  Emily Giffin

  Voice, Long, Three

  Emily Giffin (2010). “Something Borrowed: A Novel”, p.174, Macmillan

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• Time passes, as the novelist says. The single most useful trick of fiction for our repair and refreshment: the defeat of time. A century of family saga and a ride up an escalator can take the same number of pages. Fiction sets any conversion rate, then changes it in a syllable. The narrator’s mother carries her child up the stairs and the reader follows, for days. But World War I passes in a paragraph. I needed 125 pages to get from Labor Day to Christmas vacation. In six more words, here’s spring.

  Richard Powers

  Mother, Children, Spring

  Richard Powers (2009). “Generosity: An Enhancement”, p.166, Macmillan

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• Egypt loved the lotus becuase it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name-two syllables, one high, one sweet- summon up the innumerable smiles, tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.

  Anita Diament

  Dream, Sweet, Egypt

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• But in love each moment is magnified, and every gesture, word and syllable is examined like a speech by the President.

  Hanif Kureishi

  President, Gestures, Speech

  Hanif Kureishi (2016). “Love in a Blue Time”, p.93, Faber & Faber

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