D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Words can hurt, you stupid bitch.

Hurt people can become hurtful,

the fact is that hurting people hurt people, and children raised with condemnation in whatever form it takes are hurting people. Period. Words matter.

Words are really powerful. I don't believe that axiom at all - words can absolutely hurt you. Words can wound. They can do a lot of damage. I think they can do way more damage than sticks and stones. I'll take sticks and stones.

People can only hurt you if you let them. Worrying about what other people say or think about you means that you let them. Live your life the way you feel is right and do not worry about what other people say. Do not let them hurt you. You cannot control what people think of you.

Sticks and stones may break bones, but words can shatter souls. Choose carefully the words you say to others. Choose wisely the words you say to yourself. Words have a way of becoming truths we believe about ourselves. And what we believe, we become.

Lyddy,’ she added in a whisper, ‘it makes you so cruel to other people when you love anyone.

to harm another is to harm oneself

It's not what people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts.

Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart.

Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together. I hope you use yours for good, because the only words you'll regret more than the ones left unsaid are the ones you use to intentionally hurt someone.

"You may even tell me, "Miguel, what you are saying is hurting me." But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said."