I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off.
I'm just trying to write a good story, strictly from imagination. People just think it's random, they don't see the rewriting, phrasing of characters, choosing the words, bringing the world to light in which the characters live in. That creates an illusion that this is real.
The problem with music was always that the sound system often obliterated the words, and words, not music, have always been what I was about.
Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.
Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
With a lot of songs, songs that don't make a good statement, I forget the words.
Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.
Like all of my previous work - which I also hope is a bit hard to categorise - 'The Oopsatoreum' is an illustrated book, so a combination of words and pictures that tell a kind of story.
In mainstream literature, a trope is a figure of speech: metaphor, simile, irony, or the like. Words used other than literally. In SF, a trope - at least as I understand the usage - is more: science used other than literally.
The best of us must sometimes eat our words.
If the great Government of the United States were a private corporation no bank would take its name on a piece of paper, because it has cynically repudiated the words engraved upon its bonds.
Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.
I can write music but I'm not much for words.
Some words having to do with the death of the people in the World Trade Center attack had been added, and when I got to it, I had this overwhelmingly emotional experience. I struggled to get through the words; tears were streaming down my cheeks.
Where words are restrained, the eyes often talk a great deal.
There are two things that you need to save for. First, you need an emergency cushion of no fewer than six months of living expenses. This needs to be cash in a liquid account where you can get at it in - yes - an emergency if you need it. In other words, money markets, not CDs. You also need to save for your future: that means retirement.
People have always said - those words, 'too conservative,' is fairly relative. I'm sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
I love donating my time and serving other people. Just seeing the faces of people in need light up when they see you... There is no way I can put it into words. You feel like you did something right.
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner!'
There's no wobble in Bush. If anything, the opposite. Right after hello, the next words out of his mouth are: I've never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions.
My mom told me many times that when you are outside, you have to be careful what you are saying, and don't repeat the words of what you hear at home.
Most honorable are services rendered to the State; even if they do not go beyond words, they are not to be despised.
In other words, by finding the anomalous event, what you do is you get out ahead of activities.
Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work.
I was asked by a group to write a song on the theme of brotherhood. This was before women's liberation, when brotherhood meant men and women both, so I wrote the song. Since I had always been very fond of the Passion Chorale, I wrote words to that great piece.
There are many bad things in this world of ours, but the use of the word 'monetize' has to rank high among them. Also, 'incentivize.' Actually, all the '-ize' words, like 'contextualize' and 'utilize' and 'prioritize.' And - this is almost too horrible to type - 'juniorize.'
For a movie, you have to make sure the lyrics are consistent with the rhythm that is given to you. But, at times, during the song's recording, you find out that your words are not appropriate for the track, and so you have to change them.
When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of 'terrorism' and 'extremism.' Be alive to the fatal notions of 'exception' and 'emergency.' Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
I always thought of words as art supplies.
I guess whatever maturity is there may be there because I've been keeping a journal forever. In high school my friends would make fun of me - you're doing your man diary again. So I was always trying to translate experience into words.
Churchill had a marvelous way with words, and greatness accompanied him like a shadow, but in certain ways, he was a 19th-century man wandering, confounded, in the 20th.
The daily quota I've set for myself is 500 words or approximately a page and a half double-spaced. Which isn't much, except that I'm extremely slow, extremely meticulous. 'Le mot juste' haunts me. On a good day, I will finally secrete the 500th word at about 5 o'clock, and I'll reward myself by going to Housing Works Bookstore to read.
Rhyme patterns are nothing without meanings to the words. A lot of rappers can do those flows, but the raps aren't really about anything - which is cool sometimes, but to have the flow and the message is one of my favorite things.
I collect axioms, paradoxes, maxims, teaching stories, proverbs, and aphorisms of all sorts, because I love to see complex ideas distilled into a few words.
I don't like the 'must', the 'always', and the 'never' words. I don't like 'no' either.
There is many a man without learning will get the better of a college-bred man, and will have better words, too.
