A Quote by Lascelles Abercrombie

No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken word only, that his art is founded.

Lascelles Abercrombie

Quote Topics

Art Art Is Ever Founded His Knows Only Poet Spoken Spoken Word Substitute Take Will Word Written Written Word

Quote Author

Lascelles Abercrombie
British - Poet
January 9, 1881 - October 27, 1938

While the spoken word can travel faster, you can't take it home in your hand. Only the written word can be absorbed wholly at the convenience of the reader.

Kingman Brewster, Jr.

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence

T. S. Eliot

The spoken word is nothing. It hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal. - Balbulus

Cornelia Funke

Our spoken word first hammers a thing desired into shape. Our continued spoken word brings this shaped substance forth and clothes it with a visible body.

H. Emilie Cady

The spoken word is never really effective unless it is backed up by a life, but it is also true that the living deed is never adequate without the support the spoken word can provide.

D. Elton Trueblood

Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.

Bertrand Russell

I think you can perform any poem. But what I believe is that the best examples of spoken word poetry I've ever seen, are spoken word poems that, when you see them, you're aware of the fact they need to be performed. That there's something about that poem that you would not be able to understand if you were just reading it on a piece of paper.

Sarah Kay

The written word endures, the spoken word disappears

Neil Postman

We are in love with the word. We are proud of it. The word precedes the formation of the state. The word comes to us from every avatar of early human existence. As writers, we are obliged more than others to keep our lives attached to the primitive power of the word. From India, out of the Vedas, we still hear: On the spoken word, all the gods depend, all beasts and men; in the world live all creatures...The word is the name of the divine world.

Norman Mailer

Every spoken word double-crosses us. The written word is the only tolerable form of communication, as it isn't a stone in a bridge between souls but a ray of light between stars.

Fernando Pessoa

My first spoken word poem, packed with all the wisdom of a 14-year-old, was about the injustice of being seen as unfeminine. The poem was very indignant, and mainly exaggerated, but the only spoken word poetry that I had seen up until that point was mainly indignant, so I thought that that's what was expected of me.

Sarah Kay

Since the beginning of establishment, poets and spoken word artists have always been both vocal supporters and critics of government. And in this age of Trump as President, alternative facts, falsehoods becoming truth at the send of a tweet, it's vital that spoken word poetry does its job helping to keep folks 'woke' and not numb or shut down.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?" This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" — Merely this, and nothing more

Edgar Allan Poe

I appreciate the written word and spoken word more, but Atonement sort of established so much of me. It was a character that didn't really speak, and I found that a lot of the roles I was gravitating toward after that were kind of nonverbal.

Saoirse Ronan

Sylvia Plath, Rumi, there's a lot of spoken word poets who do a really incredible job putting their spoken work into page poetry - that's what I strive to do.