Quotes About Communication

The word 'translation' comes, etymologically, from the Latin for 'bearing across'. Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained.

We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.

I know that when people pull apart, they usually employ misunderstanding as a weapon, deliberately getting hold of the stick's wrong end, impaling themselves on its point in order to prove the perfidy of the other.

We are the only animals that tell stories to understand the world we live in.

Straight answers were beyond the powers of Rashid Khalifa, who would never take a short cut if there was a longer, twistier road available.

A figure of speech is a shifty thing; it can be twisted or it can be straight.

Too many people spouting too many words, and in the end those words will turn to bullets and stones.

He had picked up languages the way most sailors pick up diseases; languages were his gonorrhoea, his syphilis, his scurvy, his ague, his plague.

every story one chooses to tell is a kind of censorship, it prevents the telling of other tales (...)

Perhaps we, who are language animals, possess a song and story instinct; we need and move toward stories and songs not because we are taught to do so but because it is in our nature to need them.

This is known, and what is not known does not undermine it. This is the scientific way. To be open about the limits of one's knowledge increases public confidence in what one says is known.

Is it possible to be jealous of written words?

You observe … that when it's time to unleash a few insults, a man will always choose his mother tongue.

At last,' Padma says with satisfaction, 'you've learned how to tell things really fast.

The alphabet is where all our secrets begin.

Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

Man is the storytelling animal, the only creature on earth that told itself stories to understand what kind of creature it was. The story was his birthright, and nobody could take it away.

Bir toplumun kilidini açmak istiyorsan?z, tercüme edilemeyen kelimelerine bak?n.

Sonunda blöfünün görülmesini istemiyorsan asla ultimatom verme

Let's face it: it was impossible for them to have heard one another, much less conversed and also competed thus in song. Accelerating towards the planet, atmosphere roaring around them, how could they? But let's face this, too: they did.

Because he did have that gift, truly he did, he was the Man of a Thousand Voices and a Voice. If you wanted to know how your ketchup bottle should talk in its television commercial, if you were unsure as to the ideal voice for your packet of garlic-flavoured crisps, he was your very man. He made carpets speak in warehouse advertisements, he did celebrity impersonations, baked beans, frozen peas.

Volubility came easily to Max Ophuls, but it was just one of his many techniques of concealment, and he was never more hidden than when he seemed most open. For

Prince Bolo, who didn't like his Pages to say, 'I told you so,' snapped back: 'What's this, Blabbermouth? Are you a girl?' You /noticed/, sire,' said Blabbermouth. 'No point /pretending/ any /more/.' 'You tricked us,' said Bolo, blushing. 'You tricked /me/.' Blabbermouth was outraged by Bolo's ingratitude. 'Tricking you isn't exactly /difficult/, excuse /me/,' she cried. '/Jugglers/ can do it, so why not /girls/?

habit of calling each other 'Jim'. No darlings or honeys or babes for them. In his low American drawl and her bright English chirp they Jimmed the Old Year out. 'Hey, Jim?' 'Yes, Jim?' 'Happy New Year, Jim.' 'Happy New Year to you too, Jim.' 'I love you, Jim.' 'I love you too, Jim.' 1990 arrived with a smile in the company of Jim and Jim.