Quote

I just think lots of words have physicality. How about the word 'wobble?' You think that's arbitrary? When you say the word 'wince,' you wince. How about that?

Roy Blount, Jr.

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Roy Blount, Jr.
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 4
Musician
Writer
Indianapolis
Indiana
Arbitrary
Lots
Word
Words
Think
Thinking
Wobble
Wince
Physicality

More quotes by Roy Blount, Jr.

Image
The local groceries are all out of broccoli, loccoli.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
New York walking isn't exercise: it's a continually showing make-your-own movie.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
The legendary yet factual Curtis Wilkie has been the right man in the right place at an uncanny number of extraordinary times.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
Cats have intercepted my footsteps at the ankle for so long that my gait, both at home and on tour, has been compared to that of a man wading through low surf.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
I heard on public radio recently, there's a thing called Weed Dating. Singles get together in a garden and weed and then they take turns, they keep matching up with other people. Two people will weed down one row and switch over with two other people. It's in Vermont. I don't think I'd be very good at Weed Dating.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
People don't necessarily want or need to be done unto as you would have them do unto you. They want to be done unto as they want to be done unto.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
Many a person has been saved from summer alcoholism, not to mention hypertoxicity, by Dostoyevsky.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
It was easy to make fun of Bush, but it was sort of like shooting fish in a barrel and it didn't really feel all that good because it was so easy to do. I would much rather live under a thoughtful president. Even if it makes it harder to be funny about politics, it makes it more interesting to be funny about politics.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
Obama's the most thoughtful-sounding president I can remember. He seems to be saying what he wants to say, and that is a great relief. He always sounds like he's thinking about what he's saying while he's saying it, and that's a rare thing in politicians.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
That's American English for you: more roots than a mangrove swamp.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
The North isn't a place. It's just a direction out of the South.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
Think about scary movies: There's a fine line between horror and humor.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
I am open to the accusation that I see compost as an end it itself. But we do grow some real red damn tomatoes such as you can't get in the stores. And potatoes, beans, lettuce, collards, onions, squash, cauliflower, eggplant, carrots, peppers. Dirt in you own backyard, producing things you eat. Makes you wonder.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
I think writer's block is simply the dread that you are going to write something horrible. But as a writer, I believe that if you sit down at the keys long enough, sooner or later something will come out.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
If a cat spoke, it would say things like, 'Hey, I don't see the problem here.'
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
English is an outrageous tangle of those derivations and other multifarious linguistic influences, from Yiddish to Shoshone, which has grown up around a gnarly core of chewy, clangorous yawps derived from ancestors who painted themselves blue to frighten their enemies.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
According to scholars of linguistics, the relation between a word and its meaning is arbitrary.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
A picture's worth a thousand words? A library card's worth millions.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
Pete Rose is too rich a character to fit on a bronze plaque. He requires a good, trenchant, poignant (ah, Petey) book, and this is it.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Image
A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic.
Roy Blount, Jr.