It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone’s mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.
Interpretation
Words can have a significant impact, often spoken before we realize their weight.
This quote by Terry Pratchett highlights the inherent power of words and the tendency of speakers to express thoughts impulsively, sometimes without fully considering the consequences. It emphasizes the importance of mindfulness in our communication, as words can shape perceptions and relationships profoundly.
In practice
During a workshop on effective communication, one might say, 'As Terry Pratchett wisely noted, words have power and can escape before we think.'
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.
The only difference between a published and unpublished writer is a tolerance for imperfection.
Above all, discard the irrelevant.
Follow not truth too near the heels, lest it dash out thy teeth.
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
He who guards his secrets retains control in his own hands
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