Sarah Dessen Quotes

In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, and therefore needs to be interpreted by the context.

I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the skin of a living thought and may vary in color and context according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound.

The declared meaning of a spoken sentence is only its overcoat, and the real meaning lies underneath its scarves and buttons.

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.

A definition is nothing else but an explication of the meaning of a word, by words whose meaning is already known. Hence it is evident that every word cannot be defined; for the definition must consist of words; and there could be no definition, if there were not words previously understood without definition.

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.

When you say words a lot they don't mean anything. Or maybe they don't mean anything anyway, and we just think they do.

Yet human experience and the practice of communication have shown throughout the ages that definitions are an illusion, like having a speech defect and trying to say love but unable to get the word out, or, better, having a tongue in one's head but unable to feel love.

Words are as they are taken, and things are as they are used. There are even cursed blessings.

Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way?

The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.

Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.

Words repeated again have as another sound, so another sense.

What should we gain by a definition, as it can only lead us to other undefined terms?

We just do not see how very specialized the use of "I know" is.

Unlike the ambiguity of life, the ambiguity of language does reach a limit.

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite.

So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.

That's a trick question Peter. It's real-life. Master P is a thug. He's poppin' everybody.

I think I lead a really real life.

The horror no less than the charm of real life consists precisely in the recurrent actualization of the inconceivable

One of the crazy things about our job is that we get taught these insane skills that we could never use in real life.