David Foster Wallace Quotes

All the fun is in how you say a thing.

Words... They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good any more... I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you're dead.

I'm very interested in language because it reflects our obsessions and ways of conceptualising the world.

My use of language is part and parcel of my message.

Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.

Language is not only the vehicle of thought, it is a great and efficient instrument in thinking.

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.

Words are so lovable. How could you not love words?

Words are the basic tools, if you are a writer. But why? Why do you choose one set of tools rather than another?

Tone has the living soul.

Language is a tool adequate to provide any degree of precision relevant to a particular situation.

If I remember correctly, a writer is someone who wants to convey information. Language or writing is a code.

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

Words can be very powerful. I find them very difficult.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins.

Words are much better at relating emotions and thoughts.

Words are all we have.

Language is froth on the surface of thought.

Words are the small change of thought.

Our world isn't made of earth, air and water or even molecules and atoms; our world is made of language.

Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.

Character and story are suggested by the voice in the words themselves.

It has not been for nothing that the word has remained man's principal toy and tool: without the meanings and values it sustains, all man's other tools would be worthless.

I was born into a profession in which my love of words, chosen with care for their meaning and nuance, was extremely important, not only to me, but also to the people with whom I worked with.