A Quote by Jonathan Safran Foer

Words never mean what we want them to mean.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Quote Topics

Mean Never Them Want Words

Quote Author

Jonathan Safran Foer
American - Novelist
Born: February 21, 1977

Like Humpty Dumpty, we can make words mean anything we want them to mean.

Herbert A. Simon

We never choose which words to use, for as long as they mean what they mean to mean, we don’t care if they make sense or nonsense.

Norton Juster

I've always felt I had more in common with the modernist approach than with postmodernism, but I can see where the connection might arise - and to be honest, I'm no academic, so I tend to use these words, like in Alice In Wonderland, to mean what I want them to mean rather than what they actually do mean.

Grant Morrison

If I stand alone, It does not mean, I am any less a Human, If my arms do not hold another, It does not mean, They are incapable of holding, If my tongue is silent, And never speaks the words of Love, It does not mean, That it will be mute, When the time comes, That the words can sincerely be spoken. And just because the World, Has not yet introduced, The one that will share my Life, It certainly does not mean, That I am incapable, Of Loving.

Javan

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

Words are real. Even if you can't see them, or hold them. Once you send them out in the world, they have power. Never speak words you don't mean.

Anne Frasier

The words we read and words we write never say exactly what we mean. The people we love are never just as we desire them. The two symbola never perfectly match. Eros is in between.

Anne Carson

For we let our young men and women go out unarmed in a day when armor was never so necessary. By teaching them to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects.

Dorothy L. Sayers

I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book.

Lewis Carroll

Words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant.

Lewis Carroll

There are times when I can't stop speaking, when a million words leave my mouth in a matter of seconds… a million words that mean nothing… but when I want to find some words that mean everything, I just can't speak. Like: I miss you. Like: I love you. Like: My world is falling apart and I need you by my side.

Rae Earl

Acting doesn't have anything to do with listening to the words. We never really listen, in general conversation, to what the other person is saying. We listen to what they mean. And what they mean is often quite apart from the words. When you see a scene between two actors that goes really well you can be sure they're not listening to each other - they're feeling what the other person is trying to get at. Know what I mean?

Jack Lemmon

When a poem is really finished, you can't change anything. You can't move words around. You can't say, 'In other words, you mean.' No, that's not it. There are no other words in which you mean it. This is it.

W. S. Merwin

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

I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name.