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Some words are more important than others—I learned this, growing up in the Scriptorium. But it took me a long time to understand why.
“We are not the arbiters of the English language, sir. Our job, surely, is to chronicle, not judge.”
Words are our tools of resurrection.”
Convention has never done any woman any good.
The number of literary ladies in the world is surely so great as to render them ordinary and deserving members of the literati.
that your beautiful language has disguised your thoughts?
“Not even the Queen is permitted to borrow from the Bodleian.
Common use should not override etymological logic.
Our thinking was limited by convention (the most subtle but oppressive dictator). Please forgive our lack of imagination.
sometimes the proper words mustn’t be quite right, and so people make new words up, or use old words differently.”
A vulgar word, well placed and said with just enough vigour, can express far more than its polite equivalent.
“I shall tell him a lie he will want to believe.”
you’re scared of the wrong thing. Without the vote nothing we say matters, and that should terrify you.”
“Some words are more than letters on a page, don’t you think?” she said, tying the sash around my belly as best she could. “They have shape and texture. They are like bullets, full of energy, and when you give one breath you can feel its sharp edge against your lip. It can be quite cathartic in the right context.”
My face was wet with loss and love and regret. And woven through it all there was a thread of shameful relief.
“Gentlemen, the more words you employ to flatter the ladies the fewer you define. Your constant use of the English language is, in fact, doing it a disservice.”
“We’re all a bit odd, Esme, though perhaps lexicographers are odder than most.”
“The poets will see to that. They have a way of adding nuance to the meaning of things.”
Stay busy—I cannot overstate the benefits of a busy day for an anxious mind or a lonely heart.
Yet only a handful of words exist to convey a thousand horrors.
“You are not the arbiter of knowledge, sir. You are its librarian.” I pushed Women’s Words across his desk. “It is not for you to judge the importance of these words, simply to allow others to do so.”
Something was trying to emerge from her grief—to complicate it or simplify it, she did not know.
“Nineteen eighty-nine is a significant year for the English language, though it is probably true to say that few outside this hall would know it.”
“Words define us, they explain us, and, on occasion, they serve to control or isolate us. But what happens when words that are spoken are not recorded?
