A Quote by Susie Dent

We all know that little words or phrases can mean a lot, yet so few of us know just what to say. Phrases, such as 'chin up,' or 'it could be worse,' usually have the opposite effect; they feel tired and impersonal, even dismissive.

Susie Dent

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Chin Chin Up Could Effect Even Feel Few Impersonal Just Know Little Lot Mean Opposite Phrases Say Tired Up Us Words Worse

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Susie Dent
English - Scientist

I have this theory about words. There's a thousand ways to say "Pass the salt". It could mean, you know, "Can I have some salt?" or it could mean, "I love you.". It could mean, "I'm very annoyed with you". Really, the list could go on and on. Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.

Christopher Walken

I'm pretty good at inventing phrases - you know, the sort of words that suddenly make you jump, almost as though you'd sat on a pin, they seem so new and exciting even though they're about something hypnopaedically* obvious. But that doesn't seem enough. It's not enough for the phrases to be good; what you make with them ought to be good too.

Aldous Huxley

Live in the moment, just do it - those are phrases thrown around by people who don't know what they mean. Just do it - it's idiotic. You could slap that slogan on a picture of Hitler and it would make as much sense. He did it, all right.

Gregory Galloway

I'm a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don't pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, 'Oh, if God spares me next year...' or 'Please God...' but they're only phrases.

Cilla Black

I need a little language such as lovers use, words of one syllable such as children speak when they come into the room and find their mother sewing and pick up some scrap of bright wool, a feather, or a shred of chintz. I need a howl; a cry. When the storm crosses the marsh and sweeps over me where I lie in the ditch unregarded I need no words. Nothing neat. Nothing that comes down with all its feet on the floor. None of those resonances and lovely echoes that break and chime from nerve to nerve in our breasts making wild music, false phrases. I have done with phrases.

Virginia Woolf

I use a few phrases to let people know a little bit about who I am. One of them is I belong to Jesus, which is a phrase I always wear on a shirt during the most important moments of my professional career.

Kaka

To define Buddhism without a lot of words and phrases, we can simply say, 'Don't cling or hold on to anything. Harmonize with actuality, with things as they are.'

Ajahn Chah

I know those little phrases that seem so innocuous, and, once you let them in, pollute the whole of speech. 'Nothing is more real than nothing.' They rise up out of the pit and know no rest until they drag you down into its dark.

Samuel Beckett

I use not casual phrases but imagistic phrases that create a rhythm of natural presence.

Gerald Vizenor

Emotionally, I was affected a lot by Rage Against the Machine, not specifically the literal intention of the words or what it was about, but the feel, the sound, those phrases that got me.

Fred Durst

I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases.

Virginia Woolf

Playing to resentment and using a lot of, you know, grand abstract phrases like make America great again is - it just doesn't have the answer. It's simply a way to whip up emotion and then leave people more bitter than you found them.

George Packer

I could be worse, you know." "How?" I asked, teasing. "I mean, I have a work of calligraphy over my toilet that reads, 'Bathe yourself in the comfort of God's words,' Hazel. I could be way worse." "Sounds unsanitary," I said.

John Green

We've been clear that schools shouldn't just tackle direct homophobic bullying, but also the use of phrases like 'that's so gay' to mean rubbish or bad, because we know the devastating impact they can have on young people's self-esteem.

Nicky Morgan

I'm visually stimulated, so I watch TV, movies, even Pinterest. A song could come from something as simple as being words splashed across a billboard or changing everyday turns of phrases.

Bonnie McKee

In terms of poetry, I worry about being far from the voice of my childhood, the rhythms of Ulster speech, and the liveliness of its dialect. I know there is a vitality to New York talk, but living among people of different cultures does mean you're forced to homogenize and lose the interesting words and phrases in order to be understood.

Nick Laird

A Quote by Susie Dent

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