Verbs Quotes - Page 9

• A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken. The seedword is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it. Classical odes grow from and or because, romantic lyrics from but and if. Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb. Good poems, therefore, are always close to banality, over which, however, they tower like precipices.

  Alasdair Gray

  Numbers, Immature, Ordinary

  "Unlikely Stories, Mostly". Book by Alasdair Gray, 1983.

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• I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection.

  Charles Darwin

  Real, Reading, Expression

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.10473, Delphi Classics

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• I have to admit that more and more lately, the whole idea of jazz as an idiom is one that I've completely rejected. I just don't see it as an idiomatic thing any more...To me, if jazz is anything, it's a process, and maybe a verb, but it's not a thing. It's a form that demands that you bring to it things athat are valuable to you, that are personal to you. That, for me, is a pretty serious distinction that doesn't have anything to do with blues, or swing, or any of these other things that tend to be listed as essentials in order for music to be jazz with a capital J.

  Pat Metheny

  Swings, Order, Ideas

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• Travel. It was an intransitive verb. It didn't involve any destinations. It was going to the going's sake, to be anywhere but where you were, with motion itself as the only object.

  Jonathan Raban

  Sake, Destination, Objects

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• They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs, they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs.

  Lewis Carroll

  Adjectives, Through The Looking Glass, Language

  Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland”, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Love is a verb. We have to let our love call us to action.

  Lierre Keith

  Love Is, Our Love, Action

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• Relationship means something complete, finished, closed. Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues. It is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun.

  Rajneesh

  Relationship, Mean, Love Is

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• I love that moment in writing when language falls short. There is something more there. A larger body. Even by the failure of words I begin to detect its dimensions. As I work the prose, shift the verbs, look for new adjectives, a different rhythm, syntax, something new begins to come to the surface.

  Susan Griffin

  Fall, Writing, Different

  Susan Griffin (1996). “The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender and Society”, Anchor

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• Whatever the thing you wish to say, there is but one word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one adjective to qualify it; you must seek until you find this noun, this verb, this adjective.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Writing, Giving, Wish

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• Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said' . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.

  Elmore Leonard

  Writing, Use, Way

  "Elmore Leonard's rules for writer" by Elmore Leonard, www.theguardian.com. February 24, 2010.

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• Better to think of writing, of what one does, as an activity, rather than an identity to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun.

  Lorrie Moore

  Writing, Thinking, Identity

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• I want to rethink surrender as an active verb.

  Brian Eno

  Want, Surrender, Active

  "Surrender. It's Brian Eno". Interview with Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2010.

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• Acting is doing, because everything you say or do is some kind of an action, some kind of a verb. You're always connected to the other person through some kind of action.

  Mira Sorvino

  Acting, Action, Kind

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• I should start with an apology to Rudy Giuliani. I said every sentence Rudy utters has a noun, a verb, and 9/11 in it. I was wrong. He called me to tell me after Pat Robertson's endorsement, there's an Amen in every sentence he says too.

  Joe Biden

  Apology, Nouns, Endorsements

  "Biden Says Romney Ready for War in Syria, Iran". www.realclearpolitics.com. September 4, 2012.

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• Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence.

  Jasper Fforde

  Majesty, Sentences

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• 'Swing' is an adjective or a verb, not a noun. All jazz musicians should swing. There is no such thing as a 'swing band' in music.

  Artie Shaw

  Swings, Musician, Adjectives

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• The top 10 verbs in the English language are all irregular, even though irregular verbs make up only 3 per cent of the language.

  Erez Lieberman Aiden

  Top 10, Language, Cents

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• The whole of nature is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive.

  Michael Pollan

  Nature, Passive, Active

  Michael Pollan (2009). “The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World”, p.9, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• But still, I’d be darned if I was going to be one of those Americans who stomp around Italy barking commands in ever-louder English. I was going to be one of those Americans who traversed Italy with my forehead knit in concentration, divining wordsw from their Latin roots and answering by wedging French cognates into Italian pronunciations spliced onto a standard Spanish verb conjugation.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Latin, Animal, Italian

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• I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down.

  Eddie Vedder

  Trust, Wish

  FaceBook post by Eddie Vedder from Oct 26, 2014

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• If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Believe, Firsts, Internet

  Philosophical Investigations (1953) pt. 2, sec. 10

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• I was doing a terrible thing in using the very books you clung to, to rebut you on every hand, on every point! What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and then they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives.

  Ray Bradbury

  Book, Thinking, Hands

  "Fahrenheit 451". Book by Ray Bradbury, 1953.

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• The Word 'Repulse': I hate this word. I believe 'repel' is a perfectly good word, and 'repulsion' is the noun, as well as the title of an excellent Dinosaur Jr. song. A compulsion compels you; an impulse impels you. Nobody ever says 'compulse' or 'impulse' as a verb. So why would you ever say 'repulse'? This word haunts me in my sleep, like a silver dagger dancing before my eyes. Renee looked it up and I was wrong. But I still kind of think I'm right.

  Rob Sheffield

  Song, Hate, Believe

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• I like to think of home as a verb, something we keep recreating.

  Madeleine Thien

  Home, Thinking

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• A battle is a terrible conjugation of the verb to kill: I kill, thou killest, he kills, we kill, they kill, all kill.

  Thomas Carlyle

  War, Battle, Terrible

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