“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.” ― Emily Dickinson
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.” ― John Greenleaf Whittier
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall.” ― Jodi Picoult, Salem Falls
“I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books.” ― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Late into the night I write and the pages of my notebook swell from all the words I’ve pressed onto them. It almost feels like the more I bruise the page the quicker something inside me heals.” ― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X
“You’re writing, you’re coasting, and you’re thinking, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever written, and it’s coming so easily, and these characters are so great.’ You put it aside for whatever reason, and you open it up a week later and the characters have turned to cardboard and the book has completely fallen apart,” she says. “That’s the moment of truth for every writer: Can I go on from here and make this book into something? I think it separates the writers from the nonwriters. And I think it’s the reason a lot of people have that unfinished manuscript around the house, that albatross.” ― Jacqueline Woodson
“If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has. ” ― Charles Baxter
It’s interesting to write this post about powerful words for a couple different reasons. I’m fascinated by the messages in the pictures for one, but also by how much words can affect our daily life. As an LPC, my entire job is word based, even if the client in question doesn’t know what words to use, or a child who maybe speaks through play instead of vocally. And it’s kind of meta to be writing a blog post about words, even if I know only a few people will read it.
I follow a lot of librarians and indie bookstore owners too on different social media sites (shout out to Bettie’s Pages and Blackstone Books and Cultural Center) and it’s been very interesting to see what has come up during Banned Books Week. Words are important. We should be choosing our words and our time to speak more carefully. Whether you are speaking about something you’re passionate about, something you’re concerned about, or with joy, our words have impacted others more than we know. They also impact our own sense of self and worth.
With that in mind, I’d like to share some more pictures from Meadowbrook Art in the Elements. One of the artists created floral sculptures based on the work of Masaru Emoto who proposes that molecules of water can be affected by our words, thoughts, and feelings. He froze the water and photographed the crystalline formations that he claimed represented each type of thought or sound. While his theory has come under criticism and is reportedly flawed, it still can make us think about the ways we talk to ourselves and others. Whether or not you believe it, the floral sculptures were beautiful and I hope inspire you.
At the end of the exhibit there were two bouquets that you were invited to either write positive or negative messages or words on their vases. I didn’t see the end result of this, as we came on the last day. But here are the bouquets for your viewing.
I hope this has inspired you, even though it may be a silly thing. We are 60% water after all. Speak kindly to yourselves, friends!
“I always wrote. I wrote from when I was 12. That was therapeutic for me in those days. I wrote things to get them out of feeling them, and onto paper. So writing in a way saved me, kept me company. I did the traditional thing with falling in love with words, reading books and underlining lines I liked and words I didn’t know.”- Carrie Fisher
“I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure.” – George Orwell
“I always had plenty of ideas. I didn’t exactly have them. They grew—little by little, a half an idea at a time. First, part of a phrase and then a person to go with it. After a person, then a little corner of a place for the person to be in.”- Carol Emshwiller, Report to the Men’s Club and Other Stories
“Silence is a cage. These words are my wings.” -Jenim Dibie
“The childhood of a spoiled prince could be framed within half a page, a moonlit dash through sleepy villages was one rhythmically emphatic sentence, falling in love could be achieved in a single word – a glance. The pages of a recently finished story seemed to vibrate in her hand with all the life they contained.”- Ian McEwan, Atonement
“So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.”- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.”-Isaac Asimov
“A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.” ― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
“One winter morning Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see.” ― Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day
“Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.” – George R.R. Martin
“It was the kind of snow that didn’t amount to anything on the ground. It would just dust the dead grass. The technical term for that level, he decided, was an “annoyance” of snow.” ― Cassandra Clare, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy
“In the winter, the snow had become glittery fairy dust that had given all the creatures of the meadow warm clothes and a fire to help them endure the winter.” ― Carla Reighard, Elle’s Magical Shoes
