Verbs Quotes

“Of an inanimate being, like a table, we say “What is it?” And we answer Dopwen yewe. Table it is. But of apple, we must say, “Who is that being?” And reply Mshimin yawe. Apple that being is.

Yawe— the animate to be. I am, you are, s/he is. To speak of those possessed with life and spirit we must say yawe. By what linguistic confluence do Yahweh of the Old Testament and yawe of the New World both fall from the mouths of the reverent Isn’t this just what it means, to be, to have the breath of life within, to be the offspring of creation The language reminds us, in every sentence, of our kinship with all of the animate world.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“I'm uncomfortable with verbs; they expect too much.”
― Caitriona Lally, Eggshells

“I'm a verb, Frank. Verbs don't answer questions.”
― Richard Ford, The Sportswriter

“Verbs come in two types, active and passive. With an active verb, the subject of the sentence is doing something. With a passive verb, something is being done to the subject of the sentence.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“What’s especially irritating in grammars (have you noticed how exquisitely impossible it is for us to be talking about this?) – the most irritating part of grammars is the chapter on verbs, since these are what give meaning to sentences… An honest sentence should always have any number of possible meanings… Verbs!… A friend of mine who committed suicide – every time I have a longish conversation I suicide a friend – was going to dedicate his life to destroying verbs…
- Why did he commit suicide?
– Wait, I still don’t know… He wanted to discover and develop a method for surreptitiously not completing sentences. He used to say that he was searching for the microbe of meaning… He committed suicide – yes, of course – because one day he realized what a tremendous responsibility he’d assumed… The enormity of the problem made him go nuts…”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

“It wasn't fair that men got the verbs and she ended up with adjectives. Jack plotted and squeezed and bulldozed. She was caught snooping—pathetic participle, half verb, half adjective.”
― John Casey, Compass Rose

“I don't want to be just a noun in your life,
I want to be a verb
so I can love you
over
and
over
again.”
― Timothy Joshua