Spoken Word Quotes

I'm a first-time father, and it was amazing to me to learn that my son could actually use sign language before the spoken word. I could see this intelligence in his eyes before he could speak: how he could understand what was going on around him and was frustrated by that. ~ Matt Reeves

A man's words reveal, first, the man. The words are not the man, and yet they reveal him faithfully and are to be identified with him. Out of the abundance of the heart, the man speaks. The foundational nature of all language is therefore metaphorical because every word a man speaks reveals himself - just as God reveals Himself through the Word. Every word spoken ultimately reveals the speaker. ~ N.D. Wilson

The real meaning of the spoken word has to be demonstrated by practical deeds ~ Nelson Mandela

The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp it in a new way. ~ Marshall McLuhan

When I was in school, I was very much into just sports, mostly basketball, and didn't really see myself as much of a student. But once I got into college, I figured I wasn't going to be play beyond college. I started to think what was I going to do, since I wouldn't be able to make a living with basketball. There were a couple of things I liked to do. I wrote poetry, spoken word mostly. ~ Matt De La Pena

All epoch-making revolutionary events have been produced not by the written, but by the spoken word. ~ Adolf Hitler

Music and text have several commonalities, and one is meter and rhythm. Both spoken word and music have certain regularities, and they can be sub-divided rhythmically. ~ Jeff Britting

The ability to make somebody feel something: that's art. However you look at it, whether you're an author, a painter, a singer, a rapper, a spoken-word artist - art. ~ Wale

In the textbook of revelation, the Bible, God has spoken verbally; and this spoken word has survived every scratch of the human pen. ~ Billy Graham

Is it spoken word? Kinda, but that's a weird area. Is it comedy? Well, it's funny but no, it's not comedy. ~ Bruce McCulloch

My love is my soul's imagination ...
how do I love you ... imagine. ~ Saul Williams

Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people. ~ Macklemore

As a flower that is lovely and beautiful, but is scentless, even so fruitless is the well-spoken word of one who practices it not. ~ Gautama Buddha

Comeback records always worry me, especially when they're made by one of my heroes, and I'd heard stories about Gil Scott-Heron recently, about drug arrests and prison terms and other troubles. I wasn't prepared for the ravaged shakiness of his voice on this record or the raw spoken word pieces or the dark electronic backgrounds. ~ Will Hermes

On the field of battle, the spoken word does not carry far enough; hence the institution of gongs and drums ... banners and flags. Gongs and drums, banners and flags, are means whereby the ears and eyes of the host may be focused on one particular point. ~ Sun Tzu

Though sincerity is a word which rings its meaning in the mind when it is mentioned, its real meaning in real sense is neither the meaning we imagine nor the spoken word but in action. Yes, it is action that determines what sincere means in reality. Real action that stands the test of time does not only give a true meaning to the word sincere in our mind and mind's eye but it also creates a real picture of who a real sincere person is in our minds and mind's eye. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It is not by way of language that I shall transmit what is within me; for it is inexpressible in words. I can but signify this insofar as you may understand it through other channels than the spoken word; by love's miracle or because, born of the same God, we are akin. Else I have to drag it out, laboriously
that sunken world within me. And thus, as my clumsiness avails, I display this or that aspect alone
as in the case of my mountain, of which I may say merely that it is high. But it is far more than that, and behind those weak words I have in mind the far-flung glory of the night when one stands on the heights, alone and shivering, amongst the stars. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

At this point in my life - age 24 - I have chosen a fairly strange path that not many are walking. I am a professional spoken word poet who tours the world performing and teaching. I run an organization called Project VOICE dedicated to using this art form as an education and empowerment tool in schools and communities of all kinds. ~ Sarah Kay

My falling in love with spoken word poetry definitely came out of that time period where all the adults around me were failing to supply me with any answers. Everyone was too busy dealing with things that were more important. I was pretty lost and invisible. And all of a sudden, this world opened up where I could get on stage and perform in front of my peers. People would listen to me and see me, and people would say, "That thing you created was important." And that was so validating and necessary at that specific moment. ~ Sarah Kay

[Comedian Jerry Seinfeld was nominated for a Grammy for his spoken-word children's album] Halloween ... Don't Give Up on Me. ~ Jamie Lee Curtis

Like a beautifully brightly colored flower without fragrance, is the well-spoken word without action. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

the world is being built up by greedy people wanting higher towers and then there's a war or a hurricane or a tsunami or a virus or a financial collapse
happening
to put things in balance.
this has happened all through history and the humankind survives and moves on.
this is not an exception: this is a rule.
and you are not granted to stay here, that is not your right. you were handed a gift of walking here for a little while, breathing the air, feeling things, but did you say thank you? ever? or just took for granted, carried life like a burden and now you're being angry because suddenly things outside of your control are threatening your peace?
why do you let your peace depend on things outside of your control in the first place? ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Everybody's born to do a certain thing
and if you're dead jimmy you've found it.
And if you're good at something,
just keep doing it
until you're fed up ... then do something else.
look..
You're here to make babies and look after the place.
You know ?
(Billy Connolly) Spoken Word on
Spiritual city: -Off of Glastonbury Song ~ Mike Scott

Animals do feel like us, also joy, love, fear and pain but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to take their part and continue to resist the people who profit by them, who slaughter them and who torture them. ~ Denis De Rougemont

High school was the first time I ever saw spoken word poetry. The first place I ever performed a poem was at my school, so in some ways it was the nucleus of how it all started. For me I think high school was a period of trying to figure myself out, and poetry was one of the ways I did that, and was a very helpful avenue to try to do that. ~ Phil Kay

It was my ambition all of my life to be master of the spoken word. ~ Winston Churchill

Spoken word poetry is the art of performance poetry. I tell people it involves creating poetry that doesn't just want to sit on paper, that something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person. ~ Sarah Kay

We somehow must become what we are not, sacrificing what we are, to inherit the masquerade of what we will be. ~ Shane Koyczan

Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It's always the unspoken word and what's happening behind someone's eyes that makes it so rich. ~ Viola Davis

It's not a natural translation, transition, to take something from stage to screen. Onstage your action is communicated through the spoken word primarily, and on screen it's communicated through pictures. So it's always been kind of unnatural to take something that lives on the stage and turn it into moving pictures. ~ Tracy Letts

The poem springs from the half spoken words of the patient ... When asked, how I have for so many years continued an equal interest in medicine and the poem, I reply that they amount for me to nearly the same thing. ~ William Carlos Williams

[M]ay not literature (and, in particular, fiction) be considered a desperate and permanently thwarted effort to produce a unique form of expression? Something like a cry, perhaps, a cry that, somehow, inexplicably contains all the millions of words that have ever existed, anywhere, in any age. In contrast with the spoken word and its classifying function, the purpose of writing seems, rather, to be a quest for the egg, the seed, nothing more. ~ Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio

I work because I love it. It's a projection of myself. It allows me to express my enthusiasm for music and film using the spoken word, which I love, and broadcasting, a medium which has always fascinated me. I'm very lucky. ~ Paul Gambaccini

Photographs have the kind of authority over imagination to-day, which the printed word had yesterday, and the spoken word before that. They seem utterly real. They come, we imagine, directly to us without human meddling, and they are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable. Any description in words, or even any inert picture exists in the mind. But on the screen the whole process of observing, describing, reporting, and then imagining, has been accomplished for you. ~ Walter Lippmann

A true Dominant also knows the value of the spoken word. His words are chosen carefully with full awareness of their consequences, and he respects their power. And your words, Mr. Morrison, hold great power. ~ Ella Dominguez

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

I am nothing if not misanthropic," declared Sebastian.
"I think you mean philanthropic," said Henry.
"God, you are so perdantic."
"That would be pedantic."
"See! You're even perdantic about the word perdantic. ~ Kevin Ansbro

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. ~ Adolf Hitler

The Living Word has various dimensions in relation to power and will to power. The spoken word stands at the very bottom of the involuted scale, being the faint echo of the inaudible Word. All beings, from the Gods to mankind, possess a sound, an essential name, a key note. By discovering what it is, one acquires the power to decompose and recreate it. It is also a mantra of voluntary death and resurrection. In the current parlance: the individual, chromosomic, genetic code has been deciphered. The secret has been penetrated. The name to which we refer corresponds to the supratemporal being and has nothing to do with the intimate, family name, although sometimes a delicate synchronicity is produced within a turn of the wheel, a mysterious lucky occurrence filled with meaning, and this name may also be symbolic.

'You must discover your Beloved's real name if you are to bring her back to life. And yours, too. They are the names of the God and Goddess to whom they will give a face. 'Of the God within you', as the Hindu greeting says: Namaste. 'I greet the God within you'.

'The essential name cannot be chosen, it isn't arbitrary. It is filled with meaning of the root note. It is mantra, an eternal designation. It is inscribed in the Book of the Stars, on the Tree of Life, awaiting its actualisation. The initiate of our order is given his real name when he has successfully undergone the most difficult tests. Then it is inscribed in the genealogical tree of t ~ Miguel Serrano

The power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone. The broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech. ~ William L. Shirer

I will speak that I may find relief"; for there is a redemptive quality for an agitated mind in the spoken word, and a tormented soul finds peace in confessing. ~ Joseph B. Soloveitchik

... apart from its function as communication, human language also often functions as a defense. The spoken word conceals the expressive language of the biological core. In many cases, the function of speech has deteriorated to such a degree that the words express nothing whatever and merely represent a continuous, hollow activity on the part of the musculature of the neck and the organs of speech. On the basis of repeated experiences, it is my opinion that in many psychoanalyses which have gone on for years the treatment has become stuck in this pathological use of language. This clinical experience can, indeed has to be applied to the social sphere. Endless numbers of speeches, publications, political debates do not have the function of getting at the root of important questions of life but of drowning them in verbiage. ~ Wilhelm Reich

I've never really considered doing stand up, but I have done readings/spoken word things fairly often in which I'll just tell a bunch of stories and run off at the mouth. I'm a big tangent person. ~ Laurie Notaro

Human beings do not relate to written words in the same way that they will relate to spoken words. They do not relate to music in the same way that they do to pictures. It's all different parts of our head, different parts of our minds processing this. ~ Neil Gaiman

Private Parts

The first love of my life never saw me naked - there was always a parent coming home in half an hour - always a little brother in the next room.
Always too much body and not enough time for me to show it.

Instead, I gave him my shoulder, my elbow, the bend of my knee - I lent him my corners, my edges, the parts of me I could afford to offer - the parts I had long since given up trying to hide.
He never asked for more.

He gave me back his eyelashes, the back of his neck, his palms - we held each piece we were given like it was a nectarine that could bruise if we weren't careful.

We collected them like we were trying to build an orchid.

And the spaces that he never saw, the ones my parents half labeled "private parts" when I was still small enough to fit all of myself and my worries inside a bathtub - I made up for that by handing over all the private parts of me.

There was no secret I didn't tell him, there was no moment I didn't share - and we didn't grow up, we grew in, like ivy wrapping, moulding each other into perfect yings and yangs.

We kissed with mouths open, breathing his exhale into my inhale - we could have survived underwater or outer space.

Breathing only of the breathe we traded, we spelled love, g-i-v-e, I never wanted to hide my body from him - if I could have I would have given it all away with the rest of me - I did not know it was possible.
Sarah Kay

Spoken Word Poetry