A Quote by J. L. Austin

A sentence is made up of words, a statement is made in words.... Statements are made, words or sentences are used.

J. L. Austin

Quote Topics

Made Sentence Sentences Statement Statements Up Used Words

Quote Author

J. L. Austin
English - Philosopher
March 28, 1911 - February 8, 1960

Literature exists inside the language. It's made of words. It's not made of ideas and it's not made of concepts, of psychological analysis. It's made of words. In the same way in which music is made of notes and a painting is made of lines of colors, the matter of literature are words.

Amos Oz

sentences were used by man before words and still come with the readiness of instinct to his lips. They, and not words, are the foundations of all language. ... Your cat has no words, but it has considerable feeling for the architecture of the sentence in relation to the problem of expressing climax.

Rebecca West

It used to be a common saying of Myson's that men ought not to seek for things in words, but for words in things; for that things are not made on account of words but that words are put together for the sake of things.

Diogenes Laertius

To be honest, I struggle with words. I often forget them, you know, the official ones. Instead, I make words up. I use home-made words that sound similar to the real thing. Usually, they're some sort of confused hybrid of two existing words.

Rhys Darby

I don't wanta hear all your word descriptions of words words words you made up all winter, man I wanta be enlightened by actions.

Jack Kerouac

When I was 14 years old, I was crazy about Dr. Seuss. I loved the words he made up, and I just thought, 'Well, if he can make up words, then I can make up words.'

Evangeline Lilly

Certain individual words do possess more pitch, more radiance, more shazam! than others, but it's the way words are juxtaposed with other words in a phrase or sentence that can create magic. Perhaps literally. The word "grammar," like its sister word "glamour," is actually derived from an old Scottish word that meant "sorcery." When we were made to diagram sentences in high school, we were unwittingly being instructed in syntax sorcery, in wizardry. We were all enrolled at Hogwarts. Who knew?

Tom Robbins

Jesus made everything so simple and we have made it so complicated. He spoke to the people in short sentences and everyday words, illustrating His messages with never-to-be forgotten stories.

Billy Graham

Poetry, I'm often told, is something made of words. I think it really goes the other way around: words are made of poetry.

Robert Bringhurst

The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way for false statements by intention. And a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.

Dorothy L. Sayers

The words are strung together, with their own special grammar-the laws of quantum theory-to form sentences, which are molecules. Soon we have books, entire libraries, made out of molecular "sentences." The universe is like a library in which the words are atoms. Just look at what has been written with these hundred words! Our own bodies are books in that library, specified by the organization of molecules-but the universe and literature are organizations of identical, interchangeable objects; they are information systems.

Heinz Pagels

The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish.

Terence McKenna

How fascinating to a child are words: the shapes, sounds, textures and mysterious meanings of words; the way words link together into elastic patterns called "sentences." And these sentences into paragraphs, and beyond.

Joyce Carol Oates

Now be silent. Let the One who creates the words speak. He made the door. He made the lock. He also made the key.

Rumi

Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity.