Quotes About Language

How can love's spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable?

Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. But they are shapes, they bring the world into focus, they corral ideas, they hone thoughts, they paint watercolors of perception.

It's like having a head full of holes, in which the perfect repository of words have shamed themselves, he lamented.

I understood the therapists were trying to rebuild Paul's vocabulary, beginning wit the rudiments, but Paul found it taxing, boring, and disturbingly condescending. His loss of language didn't mean he was any less a grown-up with adult feelings, experiences, worries, and problems. [p. 144]

Cursed by its strategic location in eastern Europe, Poland had been invaded, sacked, and carved up many times, its borders ebbing and flowing; some village children learned five languages just to speak with neighbors. War wasn't something Antonina wanted to think about, especially since her last experience of war stole both of her parents, so she assured herself, as most Poles did, of their solid alliance with France, keeper of a powerful army, and Britain's sworn protection.

He spoke in incomplete sentences, as though he had so much he wanted to say that he needed to leave out some of the words to save time.

True,) the white hole said. (My name is Khairelikoblepharehglukumeilichephreidosd'enagouni-) and at the same time he went flickering through a pattern of colors that was evidently the visual translation.

Even in your world, people have died for words. Sometimes they've died of them. One learns to be careful what one says in such a world. And like anything so powerful, like any weapon, words cut both ways. They redeem and betray—sometimes both at once. The attribute we name as a virtue may also turn out to be our bane. So we watch what we call things—in case we should turn out to be right.

Meowing is not counted here, since cats rarely seem to meow at each other. That type of vocalization is usually a pidgin language used for getting human's attention: the cat equivalent of Just talk to them clearly and loudly and they'll get what you mean sooner or later.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.

They were collectors of words the same way so many of the gravel diggers were collectors of fossils. They kept an ear constantly alert for them, the rare, the unusual, the unique.

Silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words.

Las palabras tienen algo especial. En manos expertas, manipuladas con destreza, nos convierten en sus prisioneros. Se enredan en nuestros brazos como tela de araña y en cuanto estamos tan embelesados que no podemos movernos, nos perforan la piel, se infiltran en la sangre, adormecen el pensamiento. Y ya dentro de nosotros ejercen su magia.

In speech he stretched out his vowel sounds to give his mouth a rest before the next consonant.

Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you.

There is something about words.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic. When I at last woke up to myself, I could only guess what had been going on in the darkness of my unconsciousness.

I needed a lost language. One in which I could communicate with the lost.

speech he stretched out his vowel sounds to give his mouth a rest before the next consonant.

Thinking about it now, I realize that the mark had more or less the form of a Q, but at the time, in the shock of this unexpected and painful act of revealment, it had no such clarity, and it disturbed me the way I would be disturbed by the appearance on a page of English of an unfamiliar symbol from a lost and unreadable language.

El silencio no es el entorno natural para las historias -me dijo en una ocasión la señorita Winter-. Las historias necesitan palabras. Sin ellas palidecen, enferman y mueren. Y luego te persiguen.

Never mind your intentions. Communication is about what others hear with your words.

Strong communicators increase their influence because they are intentional and focused with their language.

My husband ...has passed away. This is a euphemism, of course. I mean to say that he is dead. He is departed from this world. He is elsewhere and singing with the angels...there is another euphemism: singing with the angels. I ask you, why is it so hard to stay away from euphemisms? They creep in, always, and attempt to make the difficult things more pleasing.