Theodore Sturgeon Quotes

It is important that we realize that words have meanings far beyond the dictionary definition.

The books for young people say a great deal about the selection of Friends; it is because they really have nothing to say about Friends. They mean associates and confidants merely.

I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing.

Languages are something of a mess. They evolve over centuries through an unplanned, democratic process that leaves them teeming with irregularities, quirks, and words like 'knight.'

In a monarchy, the bureaucratic world oppresses and plunders the people for the greater benefit of the privileged propertied classes as well as for its own benefit, and all that is done in the name of the monarch; in a republic, the same bureaucracy does exactly the same thing, but in the name of the will of the people. ;, .d. monarchy;, .d. bureaucracy;, .d. oppression;, .d. republics;, .d. democracy;, In a monarchy, the bureaucratic world oppresses and plunders the people for the greater benefit of the privileged propertied classes as well as for its own benefit, and all that is done in the name of the monarch; in a republic, the same bureaucracy does exactly the same thing, but in the name of the will of the people.

It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

I do not like this word, bomb. It is not a bomb; it is a device which is exploding.

I don't think I win most interviews. For instance, with Fidel Castro, I only spoke with him one minute and three seconds. But I think he won because I couldn't get anything from him. With the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, it happened exactly the same thing.

If the Marines today are doing exactly the same thing their dads did in Vietnam and their granddads did in Korea and World War II, then how in the hell can we say that they're not as good?

In order to lift a certain object from the ground, we have to use energy. But then to sustain it at that level, we have to keep on adding energy, or otherwise, the object falls to the ground. It's exactly the same thing with the sound.

I think my biggest strength is that I always keep doing exactly the same thing. There are forwards who go crazy with euphoria, but after a goal, I let myself fall back to the midfield, recharge. Keeping yourself cool and concentrated on your mission.

As a player, I loved being tackled, whether it was in training or in a game. I took a full-blooded challenge as an invitation to do exactly the same thing to an opponent. I would wait for my opportunity and nine times out of 10, I would get him back.

I hate picking out outfits for events. That's why I always wear the same thing when I go out - OK, not exactly the same, but always something easy. If it isn't a big fashion event, it'll be jeans and a nice top.

Think how different it is to experience a word than a sound. When you're hearing a singer, you're controlled by the words, because you understand the language, you know what they're talking about, and you're forced to think about what they're talking about. But when you're hearing that same thing without a word, you're free to wander.

I think a lot of superheroes seem to have the same value system; they just have a different costume. They're all doing exactly the same thing.

I begin, then, with some remarks about 'the meaning of a word.' I think many persons now see all or part of what I shall say: but not all do, and there is a tendency to forget, or to get it slightly wrong. In so far as I am merely flogging the converted, I apologize to them.

I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear. "Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock. Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.

Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies?

I looked up 'standard' in the dictionary. There are eleven different definitions.

Drop a word in the ocean of meaning and concentric ripples form. To define a single word means to try to catch those ripples. No one’s hands are fast enough.

Every word wants to be taken literally, else it decays into a lie. But one mustn't take any word literally, else the world becomes a madhouse.

This is not that, and that is certainly not this, and at the same time an oyster stew is not stewed, and although they are made of the same things and even cooked almost the same way, an oyster soup should never be called a stew, nor stew soup.

Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today -- that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past.

I want to make clear only that words are not the things spoken about, and that there is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.

Long human words (the longer the better) were easy, unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . . but short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern.