Quotes About Expression

Fouada, the young child, listened without understanding a word of what he said but instead read the teacher's features as he spoke. When he said the word 'private', she didn't understand what it meant, but she felt from his expression that it meant something ugly and obscene, and she shrank into her chair, grieving for her female self.

A persistent preoccupation with "freedom of speech" to the neglect of other freedoms can diminish the shelter available for religion and other precious freedoms. The intertwining of all our freedoms is greater than we realize. . . . It may be true . . . that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah had absolute free speech, but did they have anything worth saying?

believing in Jesus Christ brings out the individual tallents of men in a way that is not otherwise possible, ... I percieve that those who worship the Creator are exceedingly creative.

The way that words mutate reminds me of fashions in music. The word--the note--is a constant. But the setting and chord in which it occurs alters with the mood of a nation from major to minor, from the assertive to the mournful and foreboding.

Art is just another way to describe and classify reality – its mystical aspects merely a function of ignorance.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

I don't even want you to nod, that's how much you annoy me. Just freeze and shut up.

Boredom is a mask frustration wears.

Others see their possibility in the reality of you. Your message is your life lived.

There are no fascinating people, only their works are fascinating.

it is not the first language that is all-important, but which language captures the adolescent's imagination when he or she first discovers literature.

Its so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That's above and beyond everything else, and it's not a mental complaint-it's a physical thing, like it's physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don't come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people's words do; they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.

I am," I said To no one there An no one heard at all Not even the chair "I am," I cried "I am," said I And I am lost, and I can't even say why Leavin' me lonely still

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.

It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.

Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.

I think the short story is a very underrated art form. We know that novels deserve respect.

Because, if one is writing novels today, concentrating on the beauty of the prose is right up there with concentrating on your semi-colons, for wasted effort.

The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.

A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up.

As far as I'm concerned, the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

In Dreams... well, I was slightly overcompensating with that. I was a bit like a director for hire, so maybe I was putting too much imagery that was familiar to me into it.