Few Words Quotes

A prince, in the turn of a moment and a few words, was now a king. ~ Mary E. Pearson

A few words about Sarah Palin: She is one of the most fascinating women I have ever met. She crackles with energy like a live electrical wire and on first meeting gets about three inches from your face. ~ Mark McKinnon

It is often too easy to explain a novel idea to a few enlightened persons with a few words. But to enlighten about the same to many people, too many words are often required ~ Anuj

Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! "Thank you! ~ J.K. Rowling

I'm a woman of very few words, but lots of action. ~ Mae West

Overdrive for a girl I barely know, all because she's the first person I've met who seems to speak my language. A few words of it anyway. ~ Jennifer Niven

Since it was my car, and since I felt confident it would make Marcus miserable, I pushed the Pearl Jam cassette into the tape deck as I got back on the freeway and turned it up. After a couple of tracks, Bas got hung up on trying to figure out the lyrics to "Yellow Ledbetter" - an unattainable goal since they were basically undecipherable sounds with a few words sprinkled in. The song was all feeling, but he was determined. We listened to it over and over, and caught a little more each time. Metaphorically, the song felt perfect for the mission we were on. ~ Veronica Rossi

I'd like to say a few words about one of the most popular concepts in the modern education
show and tell. Show and Tell is a device created by grammar schools to communicate family secrets to 32 other families before 9:15 am in the morning. ~ Robert Orben

A wide range of quotations are necessary for the repertoire of a well-rounded speaker. Quotations are able to illustrate in a few words what is difficult to explain in many. ~ Carolyn Warner

I don't care how much a man talks, if he only says it in a few words. ~ Josh Billings

Sometimes I just start humming something, find a melody I like a lot, and if it sticks around for a couple days, a few words will lock themselves into place. I might just get the first line. Then words just keep falling into the syllables. The choruses kind of write themselves and verses I have to work at a little bit. ~ Jack Johnson

Putting a few words together does not make poetry. A poem has a soul, a heart and an emotion. Even a Haiku is meaningless without a soul. ~ Balroop Singh

Sometimes, all it takes is a few words to change your life. ~ Scott Snyder

Words are like spices. Too many is worse than too few. ~ Joan Aiken

Enough.
These few words are enough
If not these few words, this breath
If not this breath, this sitting here
This opening to the life we have refused again and again
Until now
Until now. ~ David Whyte

He's a man of few words except when it really counts. And when he does, every word has meaning. ~ Ashlee Mallory

Suddenly he spotted Gran deep in conversation with Kitty's closest friend, and relief coursed through him. Gran would squelch the tale at once. And once she tried to quash the gossip, he would win-because he could then threaten to send notice to the papers of his betrothal if she didn't back down. She'd have no choice but to give up on her scheme.
Except…she wasn't acting as if she meant to squelch it. She was talking to the other woman with great animation. And when she met his gaze from across the room, beaming from ear to ear, he realized in a flash that he'd misunderstood everything. Everything.
She hadn't been bluffing him. All the rot about trying to buy Maria off, the disapproving looks and snide remarks…all along, Gran had been goading him toward what she wanted. God preserve him.
With a sickening sense of inevitability, he saw her go to the duchess's side and whisper a few words, then saw the duchess rise and tap her glass to indicate she had an announcement to make. With a triumphant smile, Gran announced the engagement of her grandson, the Marquess of Stoneville, to Miss Maria Butterfield of Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
All eyes turned to him, and the whispers began anew.
He couldn't believe it. How could he have been so blind? He'd lost the battle, maybe even the war. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

In short, to sum up all in a few words, or in a single one, I may tell you I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance;' for though self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

A yawning repetitiveness as of a man who knows few words but will not stop talking. ~ John Updike

It's difficult to write a really good short story because it must be a complete and finished reflection of life with only a few words to use as tools. There isn't time for bad writing in a short story. ~ Edna Ferber

She walked rather quickly; she liked to be active, though at times she gave an impression of repose that was at once static and evocative. This was because she knew few words and believed in none, and in the world she was rather silent, contributing just her share of urbane humor with a precision that approached meagreness. But at the moment when strangers tended to grow uncomfortable in the presence of this economy she would seize the topic and rush off with it, feverishly surprised with herself
then bring it back and relinquish it abruptly, almost timidly, like an obedient retriever, having been adequate and something more. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Mathematics is very much like poetry ... what makes a good poem
a great poem
is that there is a large amount of thought expressed in very few words. In this sense formulas like
or are poems. ~ Lipman Bers

In the beginning the stories were long and colored, but as he grew old and his eyes clouded, the stories were told in only a few words, and she came to understand that all the colors had fallen away from him, leaving only the moments. A woman who performed tricks in the air, an animal pulling a boat under water, dead children who spoke in bones. A man who loved bottles. ~ Pete Dexter

We moved all around, and I was very worried I would not get a chance to show her what I had planned. Here was the children's home, here was the library, here was a furniture factory of the kibbutz. I tried to squeeze a few words in about everything we saw, as someone who makes himself known and unversed in the ways of the kibbutz. The highlight was when I gave her a tour, on the tractor, to the pear groves where I worked. I drove the tractor and she sat beside me, in a very unsafe way, standing on the shaft as she rested on one of the wheel's wings of the tractor. The groves were just a few minutes away from the kibbutz, on a dirt road that led south towards Acre. I kept explaining to her about new life on the kibbutz the entire time. ~ Nahum Sivan

The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The short poem rejects preamble and summary. It's about all and everything, the metaphysics of a few words surrounded by much silence. ... The short poem is a match flaring up in a dark universe. ~ Charles Simic

A man of many thoughts but few words. Lucky for us all that it's not the other way around. Vidocq ~ Richard Kadrey

My deepest gratitude goes to those we've quoted - men and women who labored long and hard to express in a few words a lifetime of experience; others who rarely wrote but paused in the middle of a busy life or a sleepless night with pen in hand, who wept and found a way to make of their suffering a gift, who laughed and found a way to make us laugh, too. ~ Sy Safransky

Zoe - " I said.

"Stars," she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."

A tear trickled down Artemis's cheek. "Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful tonight."

"Stars," Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again.

Thalia lowered her head. Annabeth gulped down a sob, and her father put his hands on her shoulders. I watched as Artemis cupped her hand above Zoe's mouth and spoke a few words in Ancient Greek. A silvery wisp of smoke exhaled from Zoe's lips and was caught in the hand of the goddess. Zoe's body shimmered and disappeared.

Artemis stood, said a kind of blessing, breathed into her cupped hand and released the silver dust to the sky. It flew up, sparkling, and vanished.

For a moment I didn't see anything different. Then Annabeth gasped. Looking up in the sky, I saw that the stars were brighter now. They made a pattern I had never noticed before - a gleaming constellation that looked a lot like a girl's figure - a girl with a bow, running across the sky.

"Let the world honor you, my Huntress," Artemis said. "Live forever in the stars. ~ Rick Riordan

I don't want other people to mention my "self". Besides if I can be changed by a few words, then that wouldn't be my "self" would it? ~ Hikigaya Hachiman

If you were to ask me to define a photograph in a few words, I would say it is a fossil of light and time. ~ Daido Moriyama

He even listened to more than her sounds, because Tiger Lily was a girl of few words. He listened with his eyes, watched her facial expressions, judged body language, and therefore read Tiger Lily better than anyone else. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Ooo-kay," she began slowly. "You want to have sex with me. You want to have sex with a woman to whom you've never spoken more than a few words at a time. Tell me something, Steele, is this one of those situations where any pussy will do? Is it a guy thing, coming off a mission and you'll dip into the first available well you can find?" He looked completely taken aback by her blunt language. Surprised even. Then he seemed to figure out that it was possible he'd just been insulted. "I don't fuck around," he growled. "I'm clean. I use condoms. I haven't had sex in a year." "All righty then," she said, more than a little surprised at his admission. "Maybe a little more than I needed to know." "If you're sleeping with me, you need to know. ~ Maya Banks

I think Christians fail so often to get answers to their prayers because they do not wait long enough on God. They just drop down and say a few words, and then jump up and forget it and expect God to answer them. Such praying always reminds me of the small boy ringing his neighbor's door-bell, and then running away as fast as he can go. ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

The essence of Taoism is really expressed by these few words. Taoism is the way of the child, the way of the fool, the way of someone who doesn't need to be noticed. ~ Frederick Lenz

The Dogman?" He looked grey. Grey-clothed, grey-haired, grey-faced, like the life had leaked out of him to leave a wispy husk a sudden gust might whisk away. "The man looks a touch past his best."

Shivers cast a lazy eye towards Scale, and back. He had a way of saying a lot with a few words. "Least he had one. ~ Joe Abercrombie

A few words which he wanted to emphasize were put into brackets or set off by quotation marks. My first impulse was to point out to him that it was ridiculous to put slang words and expressions between quotation marks, for that prevents them from entering the language. But I decided not to. When I received his letters, his parentheses made me shudder. At first, it was a shudder of slight shame, disagreeable. Later (and now, when I reread them) the shudder was the same, but I know, by some indefinable, imperceptible change, that it is a shudder of love- it is both poignant and delightful, perhaps because of the memory of the word shame that accompanied it in the beginning. Those parentheses and quotation marks are the flaw on the hip, the beauty mark on the thigh whereby my friend showed that he was himself, irreplaceable, and that he was wounded. ~ Jean Genet

A few words worthy to be remembered suffice to give an idea of a great mind. There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition. ~ Joseph Joubert

If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words: I like cutting them up and finding different ways of saying the same thing. I get into a spell, and it all comes easy. I don't labor over it. I go inside the song. I think you make yourself an antenna for songs, and songs want to be around you. And then they bring other songs along, and then they're all sittin' around, and they're drinking your beer, and they're sleeping on the floor. And they are using the phone. They're rude, thankless little f-ers. ~ Tom Waits

Great feuds often need very few words to resolve them. Disputes, even between nations, between peoples, can be set to rest with simple acts of contrition and corresponding forgiveness, can so often be shown to be based on nothing much other than pride and misunderstanding, and the forgetting of the humanity of the other
and land, of course. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Years ago I asked my friend, the great actress Ruth Gordon, to articulate in a few words the secret to her indomitable, unsinkable spirit. Her reply was a gift that became a mantra for me:

"It takes courage.
It takes believing in it.
It takes work.
It takes rising above it.
It takes me liking you, and you liking me.
It takes the dreaming soul of the human race that wants it to go right.
Never stop dreaming.
Think about it. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

Tabitha nods all throughout my sentences when I'm speaking to her, says "Right" after practically every single word, and even more annoyingly tries to finish my sentences for me, or join in with my last few words. The really annoying thing is that she always gets it wrong. She never fully catches the gist of what I'm saying, so I have to keep repeating the sentence while she keeps trying to guess what my last words will be. One of these days I'll just say "I'm a tramp" as my last words and she'll have to say that.
Ahern, Cecelia (2005-02-01). Love, Rosie (pp. 200-201). Hachette Books. Kindle Edition. ~ Cecelia Ahern

Tattered. Water or something more foul soaked both knees of the pants. But Thomas took all that in quickly. Most of his attention was drawn to the man's head. Thomas couldn't help but stare, mesmerized. It looked like hair had been ripped from his scalp, leaving bloody scabs in its place. His face was pallid and wet, with scars and sores everywhere. One eye was gone, a gummy red mass where it should have been. He also had no nose, and Thomas could actually see traces of the nasal passages in his skull underneath the terribly mangled skin. And his mouth. Lips drawn back in a snarl, gleaming white teeth exposed, clenched tightly together. His good eye glared, somehow vicious in the way it darted between Brenda and Thomas. Then the man said something in a wet and gurgly voice that made Thomas shiver. He spoke only a few words, but they were so absurd and out of place that it just made the whole thing that much more horrifying. Rose ~ James Dashner

So much importance pressed into so few words. It was just like Jacin. ~ Marissa Meyer

Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. ~ Henry Adams

Look around. Walk. Find a cheap bed. Eat what the locals eat. Find a cheap beer. Try not to get fleeced. Talk. Pick up a few words in the local lingo. Just BE there, y'know? Sometimes," Brubeck bites into an apple, "Sometimes I want to be everywhere, all at once, so badly I could just ... Do you ever get that feeling? ~ David Mitchell

We must admit that our opponents in this argument have a marked advantage over us. They need only a few words to set forth a half-truth; whereas, in order to show that it is a half-truth, we have to resort to long and arid dissertations. ~ Frederic Bastiat

With few words, one can speak the truth. ~ Bryan Adams

He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness. I answered in a few words, but in the most submissive manner, lifting up my left hand, and both my eyes to the sun, as calling him for a witness; and being almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The hurgo ~ Jonathan Swift

What should we do? I was beginning to understand a few words of Spanish: to escape, fugar; prisoner, preso; to kill, matar; chain, cadena; handcuffs, esposas; man, hombre; woman, mujer. ~ Henri Charriere

He could shred me so easily. A few words, a desperate look, and I was cut wide open. ~ Sylvia Day

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks. ~ Dorianne Laux

I usually can't stop babbling, just to fill space, but with Julienne, I can see the appeal of just being. Julienne is quiet, obviously, but that's because she can say what she means to in so few words. She has a commanding presence that's hard to ignore. Julienne doesn't seem to feel the same urgency other people do. Everyone else, myself included, is constantly vying for a space to occupy, just for the sake of it. But when Julienne does share, it's incredible. She has an actual opinion on everything, not just something to say, and I want to hear about all of them. ~ Pega Rose

Men know the damage a few words can do to girls' hearts, and, idiots that we are, we swoon away and fall into the trap, excited because at last a man has set one for us ~ Gregoire Delacourt

The life-loving, smart,
good-hearted dead
don't want forty days of mourning
or say, "After me the deluge!"
Leaving behind some helpful things
- a few words, a tree, a smile -
each gets up and goes
and does not burden the living
with the darkness of the tomb,
carrying the weight
of his stone all alone.
And because they ask for nothing
from the living,
it's as if they aren't dead...

- Conversation with Dead Nezval ~ Nâzım Hikmet Ran

I realize that labels are placed upon an individual to simplify him or her, but it is impossible to capture the essence of an individual by a few words. ~ Joanna Lohman

A few words can be more effective than a lot of blades, even in such times as these. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Innocent like the first dreams
A few words dropped on the paper;
Contaminated they were by the surrounding air,
Fame swarmed, naivety disappeared! ~ Neelam Saxena Chandra

Shields Green was not one to shrink from hardships or dangers. He was a man of few words, and his speech was singularly broken; but his courage and self-respect made him quite a dignified character. ~ Frederick Douglass

A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood. ~ William Penn

I opened my eyes to see a silver chain, like his but thinner, longer, with a saint pendant on it. I wasn't the same as his, though; the image was of a man's profile, his eyes turned upward.
'Who is it?' I asked.
'No idea. I found it in a jar my mom has full of them,' he said. 'I was looking for someone like mine, then just someone I recognized. But then I thought maybe it was cooler to have it be a mystery, you know? So it's not just about one thing, but anything. That way, it can be about what you want it to be.'
I turned it over in my hand. Like the image on the front, the back was well-worn, the few words there unreadable.
'Saint Anything.' I looked up at him. 'I love it. Thank you. ~ Sarah Dessen

There's something delicious about writing those first few words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you. Mine took me here, where I belong. ~ Beatrix Potter

All knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost, in self defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast-time to-morrow morning, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature. ~ Charles Dickens

Read as few words as you like, and speak fewer, but act upon the law. ~ Gautama Buddha

If you do not want to write, at least spit on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and send it to me. You are not taking any notice of me at all. God forgive you – all I wanted was a few words from you. ~ Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

There are few words which are used more loosely than the word "Civilization." What does it mean? It means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the conditions of camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those laws are maintained. That is Civilization - and in its soil grow continually freedom, comfort, and culture. When Civilization reigns, in any country, a wider and less harassed life is afforded to the masses of the people. The traditions of the past are cherished, and the inheritance bequeathed to us by former wise or valiant men becomes a rich estate to be enjoyed and used by all. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Hear ye Hear ye ... ah, fuck it. We're here today for bullshit and we all know it. So let's dispense with the usual formality and get on with this witch hunt before I lose what little grip I still have on my patience. So, Dare Kattalakis state your case and demands to the council. And do it fast, with as few words as possible." Savitar
"First, I want to restate what a travesty it is that my family's seat is taken by
"
"Wah, wah, wah ... quit crying at the tit. Your brother Vane is the head of the Arcadians and Fury leads the Katagaria. Seek a therapist who gives a shit, or if you'd like to challenge either of them for their position, we can do with some entertainment. Hell, I'll make popcorn for the show. Otherwise, Bitch, get on with it." Savitar ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

What is the end of human life? It is not, believe me, the chief end of man that he should make a fortune and beget children whose end is likewise to make a fortune, but it is, in few words, that he should explore himself. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Un(der)known Writers: Flavia Dzodan By The New Inquiry Few words define The Netherlands better than "imperialist". In a time of white appropriations of post colonial theory, few pause to realize that no post colonial analysis is possible while we live in a country where the "post" lays within a distant future (i.e. The Netherlands still holds colonial territories in the Caribbean). ~ Anonymous

If you attend a meeting of evolutionary biologists somewhere in America, you might be lucky and spot a tall, gray-whiskered, smiling man bearing a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln, standing rather diffidently at the back of the crowd. He will probably be surrounded by a knot of admirers, hanging on his every word - for he is a man of few words. A whisper will go around the room: "George is here." You will sense from people's reactions the presence of greatness. ~ Matt Ridley

His name is Carl! Hello, Carl.' Here I hold a dummy mic to Carl.... Standing on my tiptoes. I'm a small person, five foot two- this makes carl look even bigger than he is. Carl says nothing.
'A robot of few words, but your appearance speaks volumes ~ Hank Green

I can look back at my own life and see where a few words of praise have sharply changed my entire future. Can't you say the same thing about your life? ~ Dale Carnegie

STARS

Here in my head, language
keeps making its tiny noises.

How can I hope to be friends
with the hard white stars

whose flaring ad hissing are not speech
but a pure radiance?

How can I hope to be friends
with the yawning spaces between them

where nothing, ever, is spoken?
Tonight, at the edge of the field,

I stood up very still, and looked up,
and tried to be empty of words.

What joy was it, that almost found me?
What amiable peace?

Then it was over, the wind
roused up in the oak trees behind me

and I fell back, easily.
Earth has a hundred thousand pure contraltos-

even the distant night bird
as it talks threat, as it talks love

over the cold, black fields.
Once, deep in the woods,

I found the skull of a bear
and it was utterly silent-

and once a river otter, in a steel trap,
and it too was utterly silent.

What can we do
but keep breathing in and out,

modest and willing, and in our places?
Listen, listen, I'm forever saying,

Listen to the river, to the hawk, to the hoof,
to the mockingbird, to the jack-in-the-pulpit-

then I come up with a few words, like a gift.
Even as now.

Even as the darkness has remained the pure, deep darkness.
Even as the stars have ~ Mary Oliver

Even tough they had exchanged only a few words, Myrddin felt that he had known this girl before, perhaps in another lives, for it was the ancient belief that the soul of men and women lived countless existences; countless beyond time. There was this world and there was the Otherworld and when a soul passed from this world, it was reborn in the Otherworld. When it passed from the Otherworld, it was reborn in this world. Thus a constant exchanged of souls took place without ending. ~ Peter Tremayne

Passing is one of the few words in the transgender lexicon that's not a medical-legacy word. We did ever so much better with this one: it's a racist-legacy word, a legacy of the time when Africans were kidnapped from their homeland to be enslaved in the Americas. If you're not familiar with this, a hierarchy of race developed in which the lighter your skin was, the more attractive and intelligent you were considered, and someone quite light-skinned could sometimes pass for white and live in white society. ~ S. Bear Bergman

Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that's just me) as if you've never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you'll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are. And you do it all one word at a time. ~ Neil Gaiman

As the leader of the international Human Genome Project, which had labored mightily over more than a decade to reveal this DNA sequence, I stood beside President Bill Clinton in the East Room of the White House...

Clinton's speech began by comparing this human sequence map to the map that Meriwether Lewis had unfolded in front of President Thomas Jefferson in that very room nearly two hundred years earlier.

Clinton said, "Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind." But the part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. "Today," he said, "we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift."

Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a moment such as this? Was I tempted to scowl or look at the floor in embarrassment? No, not at all. In fact I had worked closely with the president's speechwriter in the frantic days just prior to this announcement, and had strongly endorsed the inclusion of this paragraph.

When it came time for me to add a few words of my own, I echoed this sentiment: "It's a happy day for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruct ~ Francis S. Collins

I don't believe there is something called 'film' and something called 'theater,' and that words belong in the theater. Some rather bad films have few words in them; some good films have a lot of words in them. ~ Tom Stoppard

Foreword: Life is tension or the result of tension: without tension the creative impulse cannot exist. If human life be taken as the result of tension between the two polarities night and day, night, the negative pole, must share equal importance with the positive day. At night, under the influence of cosmic radiations quite different from those of the day, human affairs are apt to come to a crisis. At night most human beings die and are born.
Sleep Has His House describes in the night-time language certain stages in the development of one individual human being. No interpretation is needed of this language we have all spoken in childhood and in our dreams; but for the sake of unity a few words before every section indicate the corresponding events of the day. ~ Anna Kavan

We heard recently the touching story of a young flier who was killed in action. Before he died, he had time to scrawl only a few words as a brief final message to his parents back home. The note read: "Dear Mom and Pop; I had time to say my prayers. Jack." ~ James Keller

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words. ~ Samuel Johnson

At one point, the entire wagon train came to a halt when the soldiers and officers on horseback fell asleep in their saddles.
Few words were spoken between the boys on the journey; their thoughts were filled with the voices of those around them. The wounded men sang a song of sorrow to the rhythm of the rain. It was a never-ending song, for when one man died there was another who took his place in the chorus of the suffering. The song served as a cadence for the five thousand who marched by their side.
(The Confederate retreat from Gettysburg. July 4, 1863)
Excerpt From: Sheila W. Slavich. "Jumpin' the Rails!." XlibrisUS, 2016-03-16T04:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material is protected by copyright. ~ Sheila W Slavich

I focus on a simple message: when you leave the two-thirds of Americans without college degrees out of your vision of the good life, they notice. And when elites commit to equality for many different groups but arrogantly dismiss "the dark rigidity of fundamentalist rural America,"6 this is a recipe for extreme alienation among working-class whites. Deriding "political correctness" becomes a way for less-privileged whites to express their fury at the snobbery of more-privileged whites. I don't like what this dynamic is doing to America. There are two reasons I think we have to try to replace it with a healthier one. The first is ethical: I am committed to social equality, not for some groups but for all groups. The second is strategic: the hidden injuries of class7 now have become visible in politics so polarized that our democracy is threatened. A few words ~ Joan C. Williams

The Holy Spirit has a way of His own to say much in few words. ~ Martin Luther

Say what it is you have to say in as few words as possible. Make your message crystal clear. ~ Ernst Jones

I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline. ~ Ellen Goodman

She will listen to BBC radio and hear the accounts of the deaths and the riots - "religious with undertones of ethnic tension" the voice will say. And she will fling the radio to the wall and a fierce red rage will run through her at how it has all been packaged and sanitized and made to fit into so few words, all those bodies. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

(...) there are so few words in our language to articulate "body feelings" of any sort. I'm sure that this lack in language is related to our cultural tendency to dismiss or discount the way that our bodies feel to us. Indeed, many of us tend to think of ourselves as brains or souls crammed inside of a shell - a shell that is our body. We delude ourselves into believing that the shell itself is not important, not connected to our consciousness, that it's merely a vessel that contains us, or a vehicle that we move about with our minds. But the truth is, our bodies are inseparable from our minds. ~ Julia Serano

To The Reader Who Employs His Leisure Ill
Whoever you may be, I caution you against rashly defaming the author of this work, or cavilling in jest against him. Nay, do not silently reproach him in consequence of others' censure, nor employ your wit in foolish disapproval or false accusation. For, should Democritus Junior prove to be what he professes, even a kinsman of his elder namesake, or be ever so little of the same kidney, it is all up with you: he will become both accuser and judge of you in his petulant spleen, will dissipate you in jest, pulverize you with witticisms, and sacrifice you, I can promise you, to the God of Mirth.
Again I warn you against cavilling, lest, while you culumniate or disgracefully disparage Decmocritus Junior, who has no animosity against you, you should hear from some judicious friend the very words the people of Abdera heard of old from Hippocrates, when they held their well-deserving and popular fellow-citizen to be a madman: "Truly, it is you, Democritus, that are wise, while the people of Abdera are fools and madmen." You have no more sense than the people of Abdera. Having given you this warning in a few words, O reader who employ your liesure ill, farewell. ~ Robert Burton

It turned out that she did know a little Greek. A few words that her father had picked up and taught her when he heard the army was coming. Mercy was one. Yes and please and what do you want? A father, teaching his daughter how to be a slave. ~ Madeline Miller

He was a man of very few words, and as it was impossible to talk, one had to keep silent. It's hard work talking to some people, most often males. I have a Theory about it. With age, many men come down with testosterone autism, the symptoms of which are a gradual decline in social intelligence and capacity for interpersonal communication, as well as a reduced ability to formulate thoughts. The Person beset by this Ailment becomes taciturn and appears to be lost in contemplation. He develops an interest in various Tools and machinery, and he's drawn to the Second World War and the biographies of famous people, mainly politicians and villains. His capacity to read novels almost entirely vanishes; testosterone autism disturbs the character's psychological understanding. ~ Olga Tokarczuk

Do you feel gloomy? Lift your eyes. Stand on your feet. Say a few words of appreciation and love to the Lord. Be positive. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

What movie are you guys gonna see anyway?"
"I don't...know," I answered when Rider remained quiet. An idea formed. "Do you want to come?"
Jayden blinked as if he was surprised. "Aw, that's sweet of you, but I'm not good sittin' in a theater."
My brows furrowed. "Why?"
"Because he'd talk through it," Paige answered from the couch. "He would literally talk through the entire movie."
"True dat," one of the other guys responded.
I grinned.
"It's true. You know, I like to add commentary every once in a while," Jayden explained. "But for some reason people be all upset over that."
"I can imagine," Rider replied drily.
"I like to think what I'm addin' actually enlightens the experience," Jayden said.
Paige snorted. "I don't think enlighten is the right word."
"My entire presence is enlightening," he replied.
Hector looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. "I can come up with a few words that describe your presence. Enlightening is not one of them. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

To put it in a few words, the true malice of man appears only in the state and in the church, as institutions of gathering together, of recapitulation, of totalization. ~ Paul Ricoeur

Can a literary character be said to live a life from birth to death or otherwise to undergo a development from beginning to end? Or is a literary character-fixed on the pages of a book, trapped forever in the same few words and actions-the very opposite of a living, developing human being? ~ Jack Miles

This feminine billboard of Middle-Eastern fashion stopped me on the street last month. She ran her hand over the seam of my jilbab, admiring the color and fabric. She only said a few words. 'We are living in a gender-quake, a modern sexodus. We have a duty to project dis female revolution in da way we dress. Come visit me at the Monkey Bar and tell me who tailors your outfits.' She's been my fashion role model ever since. ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

How many people would like to get up in a social prayer-meeting to say a few words for Christ, but there is such a cold spirit of criticism in the church that they dare not do it. ~ Dwight L. Moody

I'm a man of few words, most of them end in off! ~ Kensington Gore