One word for no words to explain

Pelin

Answers · 3

You’re not safe to go back there,» he said.
«I’m going,» I returned.
«We’ll see.»
Jeez, there was just no shaking this guy.
«You do know that there’s this little thing called the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote?» I asked.
«I heard of that,» he said and there was a smile in his voice.
«And there’s this whole movement called fem … in … is … im.» I said it slowly, like he was a dim child. «Where women started working, demanding equal pay for equal work, raising their voices on issues of the day, taking back the night, stuff like that.»
He rolled into me, which made me roll onto my back.
«Sounds familiar.»
«Do you have an encyclopedia? Maybe we can look it up. If the words are too big for you to read, I’l read it out loud and explain as I go along.»
He got up on his elbow. «Only if you do it naked.» I slapped his shoulder. — Kristen Ashley

Why do you have to go to the cathedral?’ said Leni. K. tried to explain briefly, but he had hardly begun when Leni suddenly said: ‘They are hounding you.’ K., who could not bear anyone feeling sorry for him unexpectedly or gratuitously, broke off abruptly with just two words; but as he hung up the receiver he said, half to himself and half to the distant woman who could no longer hear him: ‘Yes, they are hounding me. — Franz Kafka

I’m writing a book on magic», I explain, and I’m asked, «Real magic?» By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. «No», I answer: «Conjuring tricks, not real magic». Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic. — Lee Siegel

The question is, Miss Finch … what are you doing in this village?»
«I’ve been trying to explain it to you. We have a community of ladies here in Spindle Cove, and we support one another with friendship, intellectual stimulation, and healthful living.»
«No, no. I can see how this might appeal to a mousy, awkward chit with no prospects for something better. But what are you doing here?»
Perplexed, she turned her gloved hands palms-up. «Living happily.»
«Really,» he said, giving her a skeptical look. Even his horse snorted in seeming disbelief. «A woman like you.»
She bristled. Just what kind of woman did he think she was?
«If you think yourself content with no man in your life, Miss Finch, that only proves one thing.» In a swift motion, he pulled himself into the saddle. His next words were spoken down at her, making her feel small and patronized. «You’ve been meeting all the wrong men. — Tessa Dare

A study of rape in Asia drew alarming conclusions about its widespread nature but also introduced the term «sexual entitlement» to explain why so much of it takes place. The report’s author, Dr. Emma Fulu, said, «They believed they had the right to have sex with the woman regardless of consent.» In other words she had no rights. Where’d they learn that? Feminism, — Rebecca Solnit

I tried to explain again. ‘Perhaps it would have been easier if I said that not being able to find something is like suddenly not remembering the words to your favourite song that you knew off by heart. It’s like suddenly forgetting the name of someone you know really well and see every day, or the name of a group who sang a famous song. It’s something so frustrating that it plays on your mind over and over again because you know there’s an answer but no one can tell you it. It niggles and niggles at me and I can’t rest until I know the answer.’
‘I Understand,’ he said softly. — Cecelia Ahern

How seriously would we take person who said, «I have faith in Adolf Hitler, or in John Dilinger. I can’t explain why they did the things they did, but I can’t believe they would have done them without a good reason.» Yet people try to justify the deaths and tragedies God inflicts on innocent victims with almost these same words.
Furthermore, my religious commitment to the supreme value of an individual life makes it hard for me to accept an answer that is not scandalized by an innocent person’s pain, that condones human pain because it supposedly contributes to an overall work of esthetic value. If a human artist or employer made children suffer so that something immensely impressive or valuable could come to pass, we would put him in prison. Why then should we excuse God for causing such undeserved pain, no matter how wonderful the ultimate result may be? — Harold S. Kushner

You see, i f you have t rue photographic vision, you have clar i ty and i f you have
clarity, you don’t need to explain or defend your images.
Clar i ty is about what emot ions or feel ings the image is t rying to evoke, not the fact s
behind the image.
Photographic clar i ty is about passion of purpose. I t ‘s about a single-minded desi re
to protect a memory. I t ‘s about story tel l ing wi th a camera that ‘s so power ful , no
words are necessary. — Scott Bourne

There’s no such thing as a ‘writing talent.’ Anyone can be taught to write a good sentence. What writers are born with is a ‘third ear,’ not for words but for human nature. And like people with an ear for music who can play the piano without lessons or notes, we can’t explain how we know what we know — we just know. — Florence King

Uh, Miss Carlson,» I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, «somebody told me you went to that guy’s funeral the one the highway patrol shot.»
«Yes,» SHe said. «I did.»
She didn’t look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
«Was he a relative or something?» That was what I was afraid of.
«No. Not even a friend really.» She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, «I read a book once that ended with the words ‘the incommunicable past’ You can only share the past with someone who’s shared it with you. So I can’t explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. — S.E. Hinton

Many Arabic/Islamic words have now entered the English dictionary, such as haj, hijab, Eid, etc., and I no longer need to put them in italics or explain them. — Leila Aboulela

How do you know when you love somebody?»
I felt something inside of me shrink when the words left his mouth. It sounded like a rejection.
«You don’t have to ask yourself. You just know it. It’ like a religion’; it’s like believing in a god. You can’t explain it. No one can tell yo yo’re wrong. It just is. — Katie Kacvinsky

How are you going to talk to someone who has no idea?» Grimm said, nodding. «How can you explain something you can’t find words for? How can you get someone else to understand something for which they have no frame of reference? — Jim Butcher

I know you do not understand what I am trying to tell you; I know you do not understand, because it is the thing that goes deepest into my heart, and there are no words as deep down as that. How can I make you know the reality of it? The world has spattered us all over with words, with cant phrases, with sarcasm, and with fulsome flattery. The world has been so officiously eager to explain for us the thing we mean and the worth of the thing that now, when we try to speak, our meaning is veiled, concealed, smothered, by the hideous volubility of facile expression. How can it have any reality for you when you hear only words about it? — Florence Converse

Oh God just look at me now … one night opens words and utters pain … I cannot begin to explain to you … this … I am not here. This is not happening. Oh wait, it is, isn’t it?
I am a ghost. I am not here, not really. You see skin and cuts and frailty … these are symptoms, you known, of a ghost. An unclear image with unclear thoughts whispering vague things …
If I told you what was really in my head, you’d never let me leave this place. And I have no desire to spend time in hell while I’m still, in theory, alive. — Emily Andrews

The thing was, Qhuinn felt like he wanted to explain things. Unfortunately, and unlike his slut cousin, Saxton the Cocksucker, he had no gift with words. — J.R. Ward

There’s no words to explain how big it was, what Cold and I had, or how much it hurts when something that big in your life is swept away, or how empty that place is that he once filled, or how impossible it is to find something to fill it. — Kristen Ashley

You’ve heard the teachings, oh son of a Brahman, and good for you that you’ve thought about it thus deeply. You’ve found a gap in it, an error. You should think about this further. But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words. There is nothing to opinions, they may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone can support them or discard them. But the teachings, you’ve heard from me, are no opinion, and their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge. They have a different goal; their goal is salvation from suffering. This is what Gotama teaches, nothing else. — Hermann Hesse

Somewhere in the world there was a young woman with such splendid understanding that she’d see him entire, like a poem or story, and find his words so valuable after all that when he confessed his apprehensions she would explain why they were in fact the very things that made him precious to her … and to Western Civilization! There was no such girl, the simple truth being. — John Barth

It’s as well to be prepared.» «No — it’s as well not to be prepared.» «Why?» «Because — » Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy. It — E. M. Forster

It is no longer an organism that functions but a BwO that is constructed. No longer are there acts to explain, dreams or phantasies to interpret, childhood memories to recall, words to make signify; instead there are colors and sounds, becomings and intensities (and when you become-dog, don’t ask if the dog you are playing with is a dream or a reality, if it is ‘your goddam mother’ or something else entirely). — Gilles Deleuze

Was it all in my head? A Lunar trick?»
Her stomach twisted. «No.» She shook her head, fervently. How to explain that she hadn’t had the gift before? That she couldn’t have used it against him? «I would never lie — «
The words faded. She had lied. Everything he knew about her had been a lie.
«I’m so sorry,» she finished, the words falling lamely in the open air.
Kai peeled his eyes away, finding some place of resignation off in the glistening garden. «You’re even more painful to look at than she is. — Marissa Meyer

He believed something that he could hardly explain, even to himself. He thought it was a tragedy that would have to be played out, in the sense that water always seeks its own level. In some ultimate sense, there was no one at the controls. The war ran on its own motion…But the thing would not be stopped, because to stop it, simply to end it, would be to repudiate too much. Too many words to eat, too many unforeseen consequences, too much shame, too many unrequited dead. So the war was a force of nature, a wand of the gods… — Ward Just

Although my work is to grapple with words, I have no words with which to describe and explain this feeling. Perhaps I write stories to show that in life there are moments, emotions, and events that cannot be explained with words. — Shahriar Mandanipour

I don’t think I’m an exceptionally bad reader. I suspect that many people, maybe even most, are like me. We read and read and read,
and we forget and forget and forget. So why do we bother? Michel de Montaigne expressed the dilemma of extensive reading in the
sixteenth century: «I leaf through books, I do not study them,» he wrote. «What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else’s.
It is only the material from which my judgment has profited, and the thoughts and ideas with which it has become imbued;
the author, the place, the words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget.» He goes on to explain how «to compensate a
little for the treachery and weakness of my memory,» he adopted the habit of writing in the back of every book a short critical
judgment, so as to have at least some general idea of what the tome was about and what he thought of it. — Joshua Foer

I’m,» he swallowed thickly, unsure of why he wanted-no needed to explain his
behavior to her. «I am not comfortable amongst the ton. I’m a solitary person, I keep my own counsel, and prefer to do so.»
«You’re lonely.»
He stopped then, shocked by her words, by her perception of him. He’d made
himself vulnerable, let himself weaken as her soft body melded with his. She saw too much, knew too much.
«This,» he said, his voice cracking with desire, with the pain of what he knew he must do. «I can’t … .»
«Just let me in,» she whispered.
«I’m afraid you would not like what you see.»
«Trust me,» she said, her tempting mouth only inches away from his.
-Blaine and Madeline. — Charlotte Featherstone

Faith brings into our lives such freedom, such love, such peace, and such joy that there are no words in any language that can explain it. You have to have it in order to know it. You have to experience it in order to understand it. Faith liberates. It liberates love and hope. If I am free to love and free to hope, what more do I want of life? — Catherine Doherty

She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister.
«I do not attempt to deny,» said she, «that I think very highly of him
that I greatly esteem, that I like him.»
Marianne here burst with forth with indignation:
«Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor. Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment.»
Elinor could not help laughing. «Excuse me,» said she, «and be assured that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my own feelings. — Jane Austen

You have some lovely books,» she said. «I like the one with the pictures of polar bears.»
«The books with words too tricky?»
She released a strangled laugh.
«Would you care to explain the system?» Turner stared at the shelves.
Matty moved in front of him and pointed. «They’re sorted by color.»
«Ah.» Dear God.
«And by size.»
«Mmm.» Turner felt his mouth start to twitch. «It didn’t occur to you to shelve them alphabetically by author name or even title?»
«Well, yes, but no.»
«The thing is, you have so many. I organized one boxful only to find the next box wrecked what I’d done so I thought they’d look nicer if all the same color spines sat together. I tried to follow the colors of the spectrum. Look, the books go up and down in waves.»
He’d noticed. It made him feel seasick. — Barbara Elsborg

Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos men are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep. — Heraclitus

Joshua tried to find the right words to explain how things were
how they’d always been. «It’s like … prairie dogs.»
Ben quirked an eyebrow at him.
«You see the holes. ‘N’ you know the dogs are around, even if you don’t see the dogs themselves.»
«What the hell are you talkin’ about?»
«Gay. Cowboys. They’re there. Like a lot of single cowboys, they go into Billings once a month, only they ain’t there so see women. There’s no point in flingin’ yourself around in public, ‘s all. — Eli Easton

He would never know know her. Such intimacy but no communication, because words — even if she could speak or write them — could never explain her world to him. — Mary Balogh

They went to the tree. Daemon dismounted and leaned against the tree, staring in the direction of the house. The stallion jiggled the bit, reminding him he wasn’t alone. «I wanted to say good-bye,» Daemon said quietly. For the first time, he truly saw the intelligence — and loneliness — in the horse’s eyes. After that, he couldn’t keep his voice from breaking as he tried to explain why Jaenelle was never going to come to the tree again, why there would be no more rides, no more caresses, no more talks. For a moment, something rippled in his mind. He had the odd sensation he was the one being talked to, explained to, and his words, echoing back, lacerated his heart. To be alone again. To never again see those arms held out in welcome. To never hear that voice say his name. To … Daemon gasped as Dark Dancer jerked the reins free and raced down the path toward the field. Tears of grief pricked Daemon’s eyes. The horse might have a simpler mind, but the heart was just as big. — Anne Bishop

Words can be honed to crafted perfection by the finest wordsmiths. Yet, if we trust solely in the expanse of them to explain this God of ours or articulate our experience of Him, we will have brutally destroyed the very things we are attempting to explain. And if I should do that, no words can describe how badly I wish I had no words. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

What makes a poem a poem, finally, is that it is unparaphrasable. There is no other way to say exactly this; it exists only in its own body of language, only in these words. I may try to explain it or represent it in other terms, but then some element of its life will always be missing.
It’s the same with painting. All I can say of still life must finally fall short; I may inventory, weigh, suggest, but I cannot circumscribe; some element of mystery will always be left out. What is missing is, precisely, its poetry. — Mark Doty

I think the word dumbfounded is another one of those compounds I love to ponder. Only this one seems to make sense. It is like finding dumb. Like finding you are at a loss for words (completely amazed and astonished). At that very moment I was officially and irrevocably dumbfounded. There was no way to for me to explain what had just happened. — J.W. Lord

The world didn’t have words to measure hate. There were tons, yards, years. Volts, knots, watts. Ronan could explain how fast his car was going. He could describe exactly how warm the day was. He could specifically convey his heart rate. But there was no way for him to tell anyone else exactly how much he hated Aglionby Academy.
Any unit of measurement would have to include both the volume and the weight of the hate. And it would also have to include a component of time. The days logged in class, wasted, useless, learning skills for a life he didn’t want. No single word existed, probably, to contain the concept. All, perhaps. He had all the hate for Aglionby Academy.
Thief? Aglionby was the thief. Ronan’s life was the dream, pillaged. — Maggie Stiefvater

I don’t just love you. It’s like the word I want to use hasn’t been invented yet. Maybe it’s because no one’s ever felt this type of love before. Maybe I’m the first to feel it. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. But those words
I love you
they just don’t seem like enough. Not anymore. — Jay McLean

Juanita refused to analyze this process, insisted that it was something ineffable, something you couldn’t explain with words. A radical, rosary-toting Catholic, she has no problem with that kind of thing. But the bitheads didn’t like it. Said it was irrational mysticism. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. They don’t have any problem with irrational mysticism as long as it makes money. — Neal Stephenson

Most people don’t understand what a library does for me and I’ve tried to explain it to them. All I know is that I feel energized when I’m in one. My pulse quickens when I walk through the the stacks. I feel like an explorer surveying an uncharted shore. Lost worlds are here waiting to be discovered. Ancient worlds; once glorious, not crumbled. Future worlds; no more substantial than the numbers or ideas or words of those who dream them. Mythical worlds. Worlds of limitless dimensions.
Libraries are medieval forests masking opportunity and danger; every aisle is a path, every catalog reference a clue to the location of the Holy Grail. — Jack Cavanaugh

In the past, I used to think real love was anti-capitalistic.
I believed love, as the modern world understood it, was an endless siege fueled by the impossibility of healthy co-dependence.
One person always gave. One person always took.
Selflessness and selfishness.
I was wrong.
Real love is unto itself. For every person, it’s different, and no one can presume to explain its complexity using mere words.
For me, love comes down to the moments of pure, unadulterated happiness in your life. — Renee Ahdieh

It’s hard to find words to explain why you love someone, they don’t make words with that much passion. And even if they did, there isn’t a perfect combination of syllables and sounds to create a word strong enough to explain love. Love is just a filler word, a useless word that tries to do a job that no word can. — Kandi Steiner

In my tradition, God revealed Himself in words and lives in stories and, no, you cannot touch or even see Him. The Word, in Judaism, was never made flesh. The closest God came to embodiment was in the Temple in Jerusalem … But the Temple was destroyed. In Judaism, the flesh became words. Words were the traditional refuge of the Jewish people — Yochanan ben Zakkai led a yeshiva, my father became a professor. And little boys, in the Middle Ages, ate cakes with verses inscribed on them, an image I find deeply moving and, somehow, deeply depressing. This might help explain a certain melancholy quality books in general, for all their bright allure, have always had for me. As many times as I went down to my parents’ library for comfort, I would find myself standing in front of the books and could almost feel them turning back into trees, failing me somehow. — Jonathan Rosen

No two people will ever see or feel things in the same way, Merry. The challenge is to be truthful when you write. Don’t approximate. Don’t settle for the easiest combination of words. Go searching instead for those that explain exactly what you think. What you feel. — Kate Morton

When we were little, Eric and Fitz and I invented a language. I’ve forgotten most of it, with the exception of a few words: valyango, which meant pirate; palapala, which meant rain; and ruskifer, which had no translation to English but described the dimpled bottom of a woven basket, all the reeds coming together to form one joint spot, and that we sometimes used to explain our friendship. — Jodi Picoult

Why must we be so restricted by language, these ruined tongues! These twenty-six letters- how can that explain this agony? How could we ever endeavor to prove what we are here for- through such combinations? Death is just a word someone invented for what happens at the end of a person’s life. It’s only a word: if there was no word for it we wouldn’t be so worried! — Annie Fisher

Around a child, people come and go, objects appear and are taken away, surroundings take shape and disintegrate. And no explanation is given, because how can you explain the world to a child?
So she had used the words. Words call forth and secure that which has gone away. With her lists she had ensured that whatever she had once known would come back — Peter Hoeg

Then there were her rules, rules that stated quite clearly that he was a ‘no-go’ area. She drew a deep breath and tried to make a decision in keeping with her rules. But the words would not come. She could not decide to give him up. Her inner self would not even contemplate it. Somehow, he had touched her soul in a way that she could not explain adequately. She felt a link there that was too real to consider severing. Kate felt the anguish of this conflict between her morality and her acceptance of the bond that did exist between them, despite her incredulity and despite her objections. — Khul Waters

I had more to say,» Sin said, still looking frustrated. «But it doesn’t come out right when I try. I always say the wrong things.»
Boyd nodded but he was so caught by their proximity, by the green of Sin’s eyes, that at first he struggled with his own words.
«It’s alright,» he said at last. «As long you don’t hate me, it’s enough.»
«That is not enough,» Sin growled. «Not by a goddamn long shot. You just have no idea, Boyd. No fucking clue.»
«About what?»
«Everything. Why I acted the way I did … Why I was so pissed off. It will never make any sense to you because I don’t know how to explain.»
«So try,» Boyd pressed. «Please.»
«I don’t know how. — Ais

BY DISPOSITION OF ANGELS
Messengers much like ourselves? Explain it.
Steadfastness the darkness makes explicit?
Something heard most clearly when not near it?
Above particularities,
these unparticularities praise cannot violate.
One has seen, in such steadiness never deflected,
how by darkness a star is perfected.
Star that does not ask me if I see it?
Fir that would not wish me to uproot it?
Speech that does not ask me if I hear it?
Mysteries expound mysteries.
Steadier than steady, star dazzling me, live and elate,
no need to say, how like some we have known; too like her,
too like him, and a-quiver forever. — Marianne Moore

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you’re really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I’ve learned it’s not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it’s more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don’t always nail it, but I’m getting better at it. And it’s always the truth even if it isn’t how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It’s being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn’t important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by ‘mere’ words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power. — Sigmund Freud

She blinked and looked back at me. «Lazarus? He’s changed. He was always close to Yeshua, but now they seem to share something words cannot express. At times I think he cannot truly understand what happened to him.» «What does he say?» She hesitated. «He has no fear of death now. None. Truly, I believe he longs to be absent of body once again. He saw much but can explain little. But more, Lazarus knows only love for others now. It seems he has become a child once again. — Ted Dekker