John McWhorter Quotes

As a linguist, I see the arbitrariness of strictures editors force on me as a writer.

John McWhorter

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Quotes to Explore

• Elvis was a big influence to my music, but Loretta Lynn was, as well.

  

  Tanya Tucker
  • Music
  • Influence
  • Big

• We know the threats - from global terrorist networks to the spread of deadly weapons. Yet we also know that embedded in this time of danger is the promise of a new day, if we have the courage and commitment to work together.

  

  Valerie Jarrett
  • Time
  • Work
  • Together

• 'The Sound of Things Falling' may be a page turner, but it's also a deep meditation on fate and death. Even in translation, the superb quality of Vasquez's prose is evident, captured in Anne McLean's idiomatic English version. All the novel's characters are well imagined, original and rounded.

  

  Edmund White
  • May
  • Death
  • Quality

• Snowden grants that NSA employees by and large believe in their mission and trust the agency to handle the secrets it takes from ordinary people - deliberately, in the case of bulk records collection, and 'incidentally,' when the content of American phone calls and e-mails are swept into NSA systems along with foreign targets.

  

  Barton Gellman
  • People
  • Believe
  • American

• My grandma would say if someone else calls you a hillbilly, you might need to punch them in the nose. But if we call ourselves hillbillies, it's a sort of a term of endearment, something that we have co-opted.

  

  J. D. Vance
  • You
  • Someone
  • Grandma

• The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel.

  

  Natan Sharansky
  • Money
  • Power
  • Peace

• Growing up, I thought I was going to be Madonna. I wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to dance and sing.

  

  Natalie Maines
  • Up
  • Growing
  • Star

• There can be a lot of mind games going on between the players. When you're about to serve, people will try to throw you off your rhythm by taking a walk. If you're tired, you can't show that at all to an opponent.

  

  Rajiv Ouseph
  • People
  • Mind
  • Tired

• So an autobiography about death should include, in my case, an account of European Jewry and of Russian and Jewish events - pogroms and flights and murders and the revolution that drove my mother to come here.

  

  Harold Brodkey
  • Mother
  • Death
  • Revolution

• Even Jimmy Carter can't be wrong all the time.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Time
  • Wrong
  • Even

• The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages.

  

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
  • Words
  • Sense
  • Misunderstood

• Anything I wanted to do and achieve has not been influential in my life, but my failures have.

  

  Imtiaz Ali
  • Life
  • My Life
  • Achieve

• Weapons of mass destruction violate more than individual lives - they cross international borders and jeopardize all people. They also drain resources that could be used instead for medicines, schools and other life-saving supplies. We must come together with even greater determination to prevent a WMD nightmare.

  

  Ban Ki-moon
  • People
  • Life
  • Together

• Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.

  

  Walter Savage Landor
  • Men
  • Lose
  • Direction

• The Arab Spring showed that people are not going to wait for an American president to make good on his big talk about democracy and human rights; they are going to fight for those rights themselves and overthrow pro-American dictators who stand in their way.

  

  Pankaj Mishra
  • People
  • Good
  • American

• I'm a big fan of David Attenborough, who I think is the most adventurous of the nature program presenters.

  

  Oona Chaplin
  • Nature
  • Think
  • Big

• My mouth ain't no prayer book.

  

  Zell Miller
  • Book
  • Prayer

• Hey Uncle SamPut your name at the top of his listAnd the Statue of LibertyStarted shaking her fist.And the eagle will flyMan, it's gonna be hellWhen you hear Mother FreedomStart ringing her bellAnd it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on youBrought to you Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.

  

  Toby Keith
  • World
  • Mother
  • Red

• When we put music on, he kind of kicks in the belly, and it's cool to see how he's not even born yet, but he's already responding to the music. When I talk to him, he kicks as well. It's a very deep connection that I have with my son already and he's not even born. So I'm loving it.

  

  Jencarlos Canela
  • Music
  • Cool
  • Deep

• From the writing stage, I had envisioned a film that would be bright and light, even if the movie addresses adolescent unrest and self-destructive behavior. Talking about adolescence, I wanted to make a very musical film that was also a love story with a sensorial, sensual dimension and which had a strong emotional impact.

  

  Alante Kavaite
  • Film
  • Behavior
  • Impact

• Most writer's blocks come from people second-guessing to the point where they get discouraged, and they just quit. For me, if I write something and it's not amazing, I don't care because even if I feel like it might not be amazing, it could still be a number-one hit.

  

  Jason Boyd
  • People
  • Amazing

• The difference between a dreamer and a visionary is that a dreamer has his eyes closed and a visionary has his eyes open.

  

  Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Difference
  • Dreamer
  • Visionary

• They want me to write differently. Certainly I could, but I must not. God has chosen me from thousands and given me, of all people, this talent. It is to Him that I must give account. How then would I stand there before Almighty God, if I followed the others and not Him?

  

  Anton Bruckner
  • Write
  • Talent
  • Account

• As a linguist, I see the arbitrariness of strictures editors force on me as a writer.

  

  John McWhorter