Top 40 Syllable Quotes

On the last drafts, I focus on the words themselves, including the rub of vowels and consonants, stressed and unstressed syllables. Yet even at this stage I’m often surprised. A different ending or a new character shows up and I’m back to where I began, letting the story happen, just trying to stay out of the way.

Like any art, what is the most imprisoning thing is also the most delivering thing. If an actor knows he only has 12 syllables in a line, the challenge is, ‘How can I interpret the meaning and contain it without going one syllable over?’

I used to be a great fan of doing crosswords. When you’re fiddling around with anagrams, you get wonderful jumbles of syllables that become interesting.

The aim of the tests carried on with these syllable series was, by means of repeated audible perusal of the separate series, to so impress them that immediately afterward they could voluntarily be reproduced.

At somewhere around 10 syllables, the English poetic line is at its most relaxed and manageable.

I loathe hecklers. I haven’t got a good syllable to say. When you come out of the club circuit and into the concert hall, they should be gone. There’s an element of manners that should tell you that the ticket is dear and it’s a different venue.

The basic rhymes in English are masculine, which is to say that the last syllable of the line is stressed: ‘lane’ rhymes with ‘pain,’ but it also rhymes with ‘urbane’ since the last syllable of ‘urbane’ is stressed. ‘Lane’ does not rhyme with ‘methane.’

As Chloe, I can honestly say I’ve never uttered a syllable of a curse word, not even behind closed doors.

This universe can very well be expressed in words and syllables which are not those of one’s mother tongue.

Every good gospel singer you can hear is a scat singer; they’re just using different syllables. There are a lot of jazz singers out there, and more coming out of the churches.

My grandmother taught me how to read, very early, but she taught me to read just the way she taught herself how to read – she read words rather than syllables. And as a result of that, when I entered school, it took me a long time to learn how to write.

There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable.

What I don’t like about Washington, if we say one syllable or one sentence, or this guy said something bad about me, then, all of a sudden, they have to be my mortal enemy. I don’t think that’s how it works in American business.

I used to print out lyrics from Nas songs and write my own lyrics in the same syllable count but with different words and different rhymes.

In terms of smaller changes over time, I think good plays are like poems. Every syllable counts. So I wrestle with word choice, rhythm in final drafts.

I sometimes wish I had a good ‘one syllable, one syllable’ name, like Brad Pitt.

The rhythmical unit of the syllable is at the back of all of it – the word, the phrase, the sentence, the syntax, the paragraph, and the way the heart moves when you read it.

If any syllable that I utter might be interpreted in 13,000 different ways, then the best way for me to never be tarred and feathered is to never open my mouth. So the next time that someone calls on me for an opinion, you know what? I won’t say a thing.

These syllables, about 2,300 in number, were mixed together and then drawn out by chance and used to construct series of different lengths, several of which each time formed the material for a test.

Rhythm and sounds are born with syllables.

She had a hit for every syllable: ‘Don’t. You. Ever. Talk. To. Me. Like. That. Ever. Again.’ That was the last time I ever talked back to Mom.

I don’t categorize characters into one syllable. These are fully-rounded characters that I don’t judge; I just play them.

You can approach the guitar like a voice. That’s the best way of looking at it. If you are singing, you can’t keep going a million miles an hour. You can only fit so many syllables in, so think about what you can sing through your guitar. Players like David Gilmour and Neal Schon are great at that kind of thing.

With network shows, writers can be so protective of every syllable.

Out of the simple consonants of the alphabet and our eleven vowels and diphthongs all possible syllables of a certain sort were constructed, a vowel sound being placed between two consonants.

My brothers and sisters and I spoke in a language called Egg Latin. In the early ’50s in Canada, this became a fad way of talking among certain people. It’s based on the concept that in every syllable before the vowel and after the preceding constant you insert the word ‘egg.’ So, my name Phil would be ‘Pegghil.’

The relation of repetitions for learning and for repeating English stanzas needs no amplification. These were learned by heart on the first day with less than half of the repetitions necessary for the shortest of the syllable series.

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

It messes me up sometimes when I go on stage and people say my name wrong. Say my name wrong with all these different syllables. I’ve heard everything. My name is easy as 1-2-3. Jer-eh-mih, syllable-wise.

It is important that the audience should understand every syllable of every word, for only then can they grasp the meaning of the song.

I’m on fire when I’m singing, I’m completely in character, I use my sense memories, and every syllable of it is meant. It’s a very special thing.

I sympathize with politicians who have to watch every syllable they utter for fear it will be misused by somebody with an agenda.

‘Iggy’ was my dog – he was named after Iggy Pop – and ‘Azalea’ is the street where I grew up; together, they have the right amount of syllables to make the perfect name.

What makes a poem is the discipline inherent in making a poem: trying to fit feelings in the requisite number of syllables and lines, disciplining one’s feelings.

In many traditions, the world was sung into being: Aboriginal Australians believe their ancestors did so. In Hindu and Buddhist thought, Om was the seed syllable that created the world.

I’m from the South, and there’s a different understanding of how to chop. There’s a syllable play. It’s a delicate art. Your accent has a lot to do with it. If you’re from a certain area, words don’t roll of your tongue as slick.

I’m excited about going back to ‘Today,’ but, at odd moments, I’ll grit my teeth in anxiety. I feel like a student before the start of school. I’ve got my new shoes and my book bag, but I’m not sure I’ll remember how to do trigonometry. During my maternity leave, I haven’t used many words of more than one syllable.

I try to write conversationally; I try to write like people speak and put the emphasis on the right syllable.

Dick Gregory used every syllable, every metaphor, every joke, every march, every incarceration, every hour of his life, to embarrass this country into providing a more perfect, perfect union.

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.