Word Police

Famous quotes containing the words word and/or police:

“Every word wants to be taken literally, else it decays into a lie. But one mustn’t take any word literally, else the world becomes a madhouse.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)

“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)