Word Association Quotes

“He showed the words “chocolate cake” to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations. “Guilt” was the top response. If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of French eaters to the same prompt: “celebration.”
― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“Sensitive," I tried.

Sam translated: "Squishy."

"Creative."

"Dangerously emo."

"Thoughtful."

"Feng shui."

I laughed so hard I snorted. "How do you get feng shui out of 'thoughtful'?"

"You know, because in feng shui, you arrange furniture and plants and stuff in thoughtful ways." Sam shrugged. "To make you calm. Zenlike. Or something. I'm not one hundred percent sure how it all works, besides the thoughtful part.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver

“Everything is, the way it is, for a reason. Or it isn't. Or neither. Or both. It's so hard to tell. It's so hard to tell you're a mile away by the Luke in your eye.”
― Alistair McHarg, Invisible Driving

“The teacher is a catalyst to convert information from a high energy state (list of facts) to a low energy state (visual concept associated with known concepts).”
― Peter Rogers, Straight A at Stanford and on to Harvard