Quotes About Language

A pile of books filled her lap. They were all the books she'd ever written, including foreign language editions. The books were open at the top like cereal boxes. Frances dipped her hand into each book and pulled out great handfuls of words to scatter across the sky. 'Got one!' said Sol, from the back of the sleigh,

If anyone uses the words 'marvelous imagery' or 'narrative arc,' slap them for me.

Sorry for swearing. Kindergarten teachers shouldn't swear. I never swear in front of the children. Just in case you're thinking of making an official complaint." "You're off duty," said Jane. "You can say what you want.

obsolete subject headings; for example, the word aeroplanes was replaced by airplanes.

We do not think good metaphors are anything very important, but I think that a good metaphor is something even the police should keep an eye on.

The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.

if you've never been cussed out by a Siamese, you don't know what profanity is all about!

I had to settle for two of the most inadequate words in the English language, words to pale to express what I needed to say. "Thank you.

You don't realise how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense.

You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can't understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren't always the most reliable thing.

God, you poets are full of shit. You have no idea what half the words you worship mean.

It was a trick no one expected of an American, the combination of a good ear, a good memory, and an understanding of the rules of grammar, so that I appeared more of a prodigy than I was.

It's a sense of despair about writing itself, a sort of throwing up of hands, as if to say I'll put this down on the page but it's not what I really mean because what I really mean cannot be put into words.

You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. you have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can't understand the words once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. you then rely on their words, and words aren't always the most reliable thing (Pg.79)

Conversations in foreign languages don't linger in my head like they do in English. They don't last.

You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. Words aren't always the most reliable thing.

We went from French to a sort of hybrid of the Catalan and Castilian that he taught me, and I wonder if that's part of the reason I don't miss him, that everything we ever said to each other was in languages I'm starting to forget.

Jag gråter aldrig över Paco. De där två åren med honom tynger mig inte. Vi övergick från franska till en sorts blandning av den katalanska och den kastilianska som han lärt mig, och jag undrar om det är en del av anledningen till att jag inte saknar honom, eftersom allt vi någonsin sa till varandra var på språk jag har börjat glömma bort

You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense.

don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can't understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren't always the most reliable thing.

Everything we ever said to each other was in languages I'm starting to forget.

You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can't understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren't always the most reliable thing. 1/13

Good heavens,' he says. 'Is that what it's like with your writers? The word "snug" and you're mad in love?

You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can't understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away.