Quotes About Language

I'm really great at making terrible analogies.

We are the only animal that tells stories.

I was not a great reader. I don't know how to put it any other way.

I can speak passable Mandarin. I will not be translating at the U.N. anytime soon.

If you met me in London, you might be appalled at how English I sounded.

What language are you talking in now? It appears to be bollocks.

I do that in whatever language of the country I'm in, because the audience appreciate it.

If you say 'Domo arigato' to people, they're apt to go, 'Mr. Roboto.'

I don't know Arabic. I can't speak or write it.

I made French films and other films and a lot of Arabic films, but what I like is English for myself.

I grew up speaking Arabic at home.

Arabs respect only the language of force.

Acting is very physical, even when it doesn't appear to be. It's about the arc of your body's language through a film.

The oration of poetry, I consider to be its own art form and tradition.

I wanted things that I couldn't at times articulate.

I'm not very articulate.

It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing.

Artists talk in 'art speak.'

I think it's the way I talk. I think they thought I was too country. And I'm not ashamed of that by any means.

Once every woman was a living gazette, a font of delicious slanders cast in beautiful language.

In other countries customs are very different. Englishmen pique themselves on never opening their lips; Germans are melancholy in a vehicle; Italians too wary to talk; Spaniards have no public conveyances; and Russians no roads.

Monsieur, I owe you a million thanks — — " "A million thanks," thought he to himself, "that is too many; it does not mean one.

Why do grown-ups think they can talk over your head? When my mother and her friends gossip, they think I don't understand what they're saying, because they talk all around a subject instead of using plain words. Or they don't finish a sentence and then give each other meaningful looks. Well, it doesn't take a genius to fill in the blanks--I've learned how to figure out what goes in blanks from taking school tests.

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.