Peccadillos Dictionary Quotes

My patient was one of those singular and unfortunate people who regard their heart ("a hollow, muscular organ," according to the gruesome definition in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which Pnin's orphaned bag contained) with a queasy dread, a nervous repulsion, a sick hate, as if it were some strong slimy untouchable monster that one had to be parasitized with, alas. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

(a) A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his life in bars, arguing with other dishevelled, bespectacled writers. He says very 'deep' things. He always has amazing ideas for the plot of his next novel, and hates the one he has just published.
(b) A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation; convinced, as he is, that he has been born into an age of mediocrity, he believes that being understood would mean losing his chance of ever being considered a genius. A writer revises and rewrites each sentence many times. The vocabulary of the average man is made up of 3,000 words; a real writer never uses any of these, because there are another 189,000 in the dictionary, and he is not the average man.
(c) Only other writers can understand what a writer is trying to say. Even so, he secretly hates all other writers, because they are always jockeying for the same vacancies left by the history of literature over the centuries. And so the writer and his peers compete for the prize of 'most complicated book': the one who wins will be the one who has succeeded in being the most difficult to read.
(d) A writer understands about things with alarming names, like semiotics, epistemology, neoconcretism. When he wants to shock someone, he says things like: 'Einstein is a fool', or 'Tolstoy was the clown of the bourgeoisie.' Everyone is ~ Paulo Coelho

I'm basically a poetry scholar, and I'm happier here in my studio with my row of Chinese dictionaries than I am, frankly, at Lincoln Center. ~ Sam Hamill

LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were a statue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as "obsolete" or "obsolescent" and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and however desirable its restoration to favor - whereby the process of improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On the contrary, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has no following and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary" - although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary. In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed at t ~ Ambrose Bierce

To observe the world carefully, to write a lot and often, on a schedule if necessary, to use the dictionary a lot, to look up word origins, to analyze closely the work of writers you admire, to read not only contemporaries but writers of the past, to learn at least one foreign language, to live an interesting life outside of writing. ~ Lydia Davis

Don't you think that's the main reason people find [writing] so difficult? If they can write complete sentences and can use a dictionary, isn't that the only reason they find writing hard: they don't know or care about anything? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Repertitious has not had nearly the success in entering the language that serendipitous has had, most likely because its PR team isn't nearly as good. The noun form of the latter, serendipity, was made up in the 1750s by the novelist Horace Walpole, based on Serendip (a former name for Sri Lanka). Repertitious, on the other hand, has its first mention in Thomas Blount's dictionary of 1656. Writers - 1, lexicographers - 0. Resentient ~ Ammon Shea

But one may acquire what MacIntyre calls a "second first language," a language which is learned in the same way that a child learns to use the native tongue. A missionary or an anthropologist who really hopes to understand and enter into the adopted culture will not do so by trying to learn the language in the way a tourist uses a phrasebook and a dictionary. ~ Lesslie Newbigin

My parents went through the dictionary looking for a beautiful name, nearly called me Banyan, flicked on a few pages and came to China, which is cockney rhyming slang for mate. ~ China Mieville

Often, I grow irritated before the first tile has been placed on the Scrabble board. This generally occurs when one of my opponents has insisted upon bringing a dictionary to the table, making it clear that he will be consulting it throughout the game. ~ Craig Brown

The high-minded definition of politics is: 'the art or science of government; the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy.' It is only when you keep reading in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary that you get closer to the truth: 'political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices'. ~ Cal Thomas

Oh.My. Every illegal swear word in the dictionary, God. What is it with older men? don't they ever look in the mirror? ~ Diane Messidoro

'Unbelievable' is the stupidest word in the dictionary. ~ Matthew McConaughey

You may find yourself in the middle of a storm. You must never have the word 'surrender' in your dictionary! Fight back is the only word you need! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

And I'm not ready to tell you I'm in love with you, because I'm not. Not yet. But whatever this I'm feeling - it's so much more than like ... And for the past few weeks I've been trying to figure it out. I've been trying to figure out why there isn't some word to describe it. I want to tell you exactly how I feel but there isn't a single goddamned word in the entire dictionary that can describe this point between liking you and loving you, but I need that word ... "
"Living,"she finally whispers.
"I live you, Sky ... I live you so much. ~ Colleen Hoover

By capitulating to life, this world has betrayed nothingness ... I resign from movement, and from my dreams. Absence! You shall be my sole glory ... Let "desire" be forever stricken from the dictionary, and from the soul! I retreat before the dizzying farce of tomorrows. And if I still cling to a few hopes, I have lost forever the faculty of hoping ~ Emil Cioran

To say exactly what one means, even to one's own private satisfaction, is difficult. To say exactly what one means and to involve another person is harder still. Communication between you and me relies on assumptions, associations, commonalities and a kind of agreed shorthand, which no-one could precisely define but which everyone would admit exists. That is one reason why it is an effort to have a proper conversation in a foreign language. Even if I am quite fluent, even if I understand the dictionary definitions of words and phrases, I cannot rely on a shorthand with the other party, whose habit of mind is subtly different from my own. Nevertheless, all of us know of times when we have not been able to communicate in words a deep emotion and yet we know we have been understood. This can happen in the most foreign of foreign parts and it can happen in our own homes. It would seem that for most of us, most of the time, communication depends on more than words. ~ Jeanette Winterson

The dictionary contains no metaphors. ~ Paul Ricoeur

I'm very sensitive to the English language. I studied the dictionary obsessively when I was a kid and collect old dictionaries. Words, I think, are very powerful and they convey an intention. ~ Drew Barrymore

We're so special, when you look in the dictionary under short bus, there's a group picture of us,' Stevie Rae said, sounding weak but definately alive. ~ Kristin Cast

The definition of a hero changes depending on the needs of the person with the dictionary. And of late I've become more aware how much being a hero to the empire means being a war criminal to the rest of the world. ~ Lindsay Buroker

Кто уцелел - умрёт, кто мёртв - воспрянет.
И вот потомки, вспомнив старину:
- Где были вы? - Вопрос как громом грянет,
Ответ как громом грянет: - На Дону!

- Что делали? - Да принимали муки,
Потом устали и легли на сон.
И в словаре задумчивые внуки
За словом: «долг» напишут слово: «Дон».

30 марта 1918


Those spared - will die, those fallen - rise from under.
Then come the sons, remembering days far gone: - And where were you? - the words will roll like thunder,
The answer roll like thunder: - On the Don!

- What did you do? - We bore with grief and cruelty,
Then laid us down to sleep, our last strength gone.
And in the dictionary, over Duty,
The grandsons, looking back, will write: the Don. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

How come abbreviated is such a long word? ~ Steven Wright

I started by looking everything up in a Star Trek dictionary so I knew what I was talking about, but you can't do that because they talk in circles, and half of it doesn't make sense, so you'll just end up driving yourself more insane. ~ Jeri Ryan

I go downstairs and the books blink at me from the shelves. Or stare. In a trick of the light, a row of them seems to shift very slightly, like a curtain blown by the breeze through an open window. Red is next to blue is next to cream is adjacent to beige. But when I look again, cream is next to green is next to black. A tall book shelters a small book, a huge Folio bullies a cowering line of Quartos. A child's nursery rhyme book does not have the language in which to speak to a Latin dictionary. Chaucer does not know the words in which Henry James communicates but here they are forced to live together, forever speechless. ~ Susan Hill

Faith is what replaces doubt in my dictionary. ~ Philippe Petit

Learning is the dictionary, but sense the grammar of science. ~ Laurence Sterne

The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others. ~ Alain De Botton

At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

They all spoke some German, having been living in the German-speaking region of Switzerland. Lenin himself spoke it well. He was a remarkable linguist, Walter learned. He was fluent in French, spoke passable English, and read Aristotle in ancient Greek. Lenin's idea of relaxation was to sit down with a foreign-language dictionary for an hour or two. ~ Ken Follett

My dictionary has no such expression as a violent fight. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

And because they had mass, they became simpler," said Beatty. "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?" "I think so." Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air. "Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending." "Snap ending." Mildred nodded. "Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. ~ Ray Bradbury

If you look up "charming" in the dictionary, you'll see that it not only has references to strong attraction, but to spells and magic. Then again, what are liars if not great magicians? ~ Deb Caletti

Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten. ~ Frances Wright

The word precipice does not exist in the dictionary of birds! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

In the dictionary of the seeker of truth there is no such thing as being "not successful." He is or should be an irrepressible optimist because of his immovable faith in the ultimate victory of Truth, which is God. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Infallibility: The position that the Bible cannot err or make mistakes, and that it "is completely trustworthy as a guide to salvation and the life of faith and will not fail to accomplish its purpose" (Westminster Dictionary). As the Christian church has traditionally taught, this doctrine is based on the perfection of the divine author, who cannot speak error. ~ Anonymous

When you look up 'hilarious' in the dictionary, there's a picture of you. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

If you look up the word "gab" in the dictionary, it's insignificant of importance, of no substance. That's what gab is. ~ Malachy McCourt

The [commercial] strip is marketed with the come-on of comfort (the Comfort Inn) and with the promise of a home on the road, a home where nobody knows your name and they're glad to see you as long as you can pay. The strip lives in the contradiction of the name Home Depot - domesticity on a gargantuan scale. Home - "a person's native place," "at ease," "deep; to the heart," says the dictionary, and Depot, "a storehouse or a 'warehouse.'" (Warehouse of the Heart?) ~ Howard Mansfield

I looked up the word POLITICS in the dictionary, and it's actually a combination of two words: poli, which means 'many,' and tics, which means 'bloodsuckers.' ~ Jay Leno

A bar, as any good dictionary will tell you, is a rod of wood or iron that can be used to fasten a gate. From this came the idea of a bar as any let or hindrance that can stop you going where you want to; specifically the bar in a pub or tavern is the bar-rier behind which is stored all the lovely intoxicating liquors that only the bar-man is allowed to lay is hands on without forking out. ~ Mark Forsyth

The problem with the alphabet is that it bears no relation to anything at all, and when words are arranged alphabetically they are uselessly separated. In the OED, for example, aardvarks are 19 volumes away from the zoo, yachts are 18 volumes from the beach, and wine is 17 volumes from the nearest corkscrew. ~ Mark Forsyth

Trinidad's language is a fusion of English, African, and French, and so we have our own words and even our own dictionary. Steupse is a common local word, and it's the onomatopoeic word for the sound people make to show disapproval, or to show they are vexed, when they suck their teeth together. ~ Monique Roffey

I bought a dictionary. First thing I did was, I looked up the word "dictionary", and it said "you're an asshole". ~ Demetri Martin

No word has one specific definition.Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life
-Ms.Conyers of Sarah Dessen's Lock and Key ~ Sarah Dessen

If you look up the definition of greatness in the dictionary, it will say Michael Jordan. ~ Elgin Baylor

Language, then, not simply as a list of separate things to be added up and whose sum total is equal to the world. Rather, language as it is laid out in the dictionary: an infinitely complex organism, all of whose elements [ ... ] are present in the world simultaneously, none of which can exist on its own. For each word is defined by other words, which means that to enter any part of language is to enter the whole of it ~ Paul Auster