Lexicographers may be nerds who don't like human contact, but we're still people.

I think when dictionaries define words, there's a sort of hair-splitting that to most people doesn't make any sense, which is we're not describing what a thing is.

Whenever you try and simplify how people speak, it's just hard to squish them into a simple rule. Language doesn't work that way.

Words have always been political, and that means that, in many people's minds, dictionaries are political. Because that's what dictionaries do: they do words.

We want to emulate the educated class, even if we don't think of educated people as a class these days.

ALL words are made-up: Do you think we find them fully formed on the ocean floor, or mine from them in some remote part of Wales?

More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them

Neatness is the hobogoblin of little minds

By gazing inward the true reflection of the self is revealed.

They laughed.They kissed.They loved.

It's like she thinks my job is to please her, and that should be my dearest wish, and when I don't please her - I get shut out.

The duty of the words is to say just as much as the music has left unsaid and no more.

The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at the point.

Nobody ever recognizes themselves unless they are not the character. There are many people who have claimed to be in my books, but unfortunately they were usually people that I didn't know.

The seeds of great victory lie in minor triumphs.

The degree of leverage now being reversed is on a staggering scale, and the underlying global imbalances – notably between the savers and the spenders – will require long and painful adjustment.