#vague

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.' ↗

— A. R. Ammons

#ask #correction #disorder #expect #linguistic

You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea. ↗

— Pablo Picasso

#idea #should #vague #vague idea #you

Usually it is uses of words, not words in themselves, that are properly called vague. ↗

— J. L. Austin

#properly #themselves #uses #usually #vague

In such a case secrecy must be absolute to be effective, and although mere vague curiosity induced many persons of my intimate acquaintance to ask to be allowed to just go in and have a peep, I never admitted anyone. ↗

— Henry Bessemer

#acquaintance #admitted #allowed #although #anyone

Look, it's one of the great mysteries of the world, I cannot answer that question. I think I'm vaguely blonde. To be perfectly frank, I don't know. ↗

— Cate Blanchett

#blonde #cannot #frank #great #i

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. ↗

— Theodore Dreiser

#feelings #great #inaudible #links #little

I had some vague memory of visiting Canberra as a lad, when we came up with my father by car. But when I made the long train journey from Sydney to Canberra and arrived at the little stop, I did wonder slightly whether this really was the national capital. ↗

— John Henry Carver

#came #canberra #capital #car #did

We cannot afford to have any large section of the business world in doubt whether they have broken the laws or not, and we cannot let the laws become a dead letter through vagueness. In this view it is clear that an administrative commission can render invaluable service. ↗

— John Bates Clark

#afford #any #become #broken #business

The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic; and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal. ↗

— Herbert Croly

#actual #adequate #american #american life #aspiration

I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I've finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that closely resembles the sentence I first set down. I just find that I have to keep zapping and zapping the English language until it starts to behave in some way that vaguely matches my intentions. ↗

— Michael Cunningham

#again #along #behave #closely #constantly