A Quote by Octavio Paz

Perhaps things are not things but words: metaphors, words for other things.

Octavio Paz

Quote Topics

Metaphors Other Perhaps Things Words

Quote Author

Octavio Paz
Mexican - Poet
March 31, 1914 - April 19, 1998

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

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects - things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language - either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

Aristotle

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out.

Stephen King

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings - words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.

Stephen King

She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.

Dean Koontz

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one's never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

Aldous Huxley

Some words have to be explicitly uttered, Lenore. Only by actually uttering certain words does one really DO what one SAYS. 'Love' is one of those words, performative words. Some words can literally make things real.

David Foster Wallace

Words are often things also, and very precious, especially on the gravest occasions. Without "words," and the truth of things that is in them, what were we?

Leigh Hunt

I am convinced that words are things, and we simply don't have the machinery to measure what they are. I believe that words are tangible things.

Maya Angelou

The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.

Plutarch

For it was not so much that by means of words I came to a complete understanding of things, as that from things I somehow had an experience which enabled me to follow the meaning of words.

Plutarch

But I do enjoy words—some words for their own sake! Words like river, and dawn, and daylight, and time. These words seem much richer than our experiences of the things they represent—

Alasdair Gray

THE FATHER: But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here? In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably translate them according to the conception of things each one of you has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never really do.

Luigi Pirandello

Kids use words in ways that release hidden meanings, revel the history buried in sounds. They haven't forgotten that words can be more than signs, that words have magic, the power to be things, to point to themselves and materialize. With their back-formations, archaisms, their tendency to play the music in words--rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, repetition--children peel the skin from language. Words become incantatory. Open Sesame. Abracadabra. Perhaps a child will remember the word and will bring the walls tumbling down.

John Edgar Wideman

There are two words that, when spoken, have the most unfathomable power to completely change your life. Two words which, when they pass your lips, will be the cause of bringing absolute joy and happiness to you. Two words that will create miracles in your life. Two words that will wipe out negativity. Two words that will bring you abundance in all things. Two words which, when uttered and sincerely felt, will summon all the forces and vibrations in the Universe to move all things for you. The only thing standing between you, happiness, and the life of your dreams is two words THANK YOU!