Quotes About Language

A border cop confessed: "I have a rule now. If it don't speak English, shoot it.

They still spoke a thousand languages—Spanish, too, to be sure, but also a thicket of songs and grammars. Mexico—the sound of wind in the ruins. Mexico—the waves rushing the shore. Mexico—the sand dunes, the snowfields, the steam of sleeping Popocatépetl

Pois é": uma maneira tipicamente brasileira de não ficar quieto e ao mesmo tempo não dizer nada.

FRASES A boa frase também é uma maneira de conviver com o inexprimível. Dá-se nome às coisas para domá-las.

Yo vengo sin idiomas desde mi soledad, y sin idiomas voy hacia la tuya. No hay nada que decir, pero supongo que hablaremos desnudos sobre esto, algo después, quitándole importancia, avivando los ritmos del pasado, las cosas que están lejos y que ya no nos duelen.

El arte es el intento de explicar lo inefable.

La poesía es sobre todo el naufragio feliz de la memoria.

Lo que veo es que cada vez hablás peor, repetiste mil veces las mismas palabras.

In just a few more years, the current homogenized 'voice' of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.…[C]ompanies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone."4

Above all, translators must be native speakers. It's not because they speak the language better -- I understand that sometimes a foreigner can learn a language better than native speakers. It has more to do with having an intimate knowledge of the society for which the book is being translated.

Sradica l'albero genealogico dell'avversario con la forza del turpiloquio.

All my life I have been trying to improve my German. At last my German is better —but now I am old and ill and don't have long to live. Soon I will be dead, with better German.

They Take Turns Using a Word They Like "It's extraordinary," says one woman.

because she couldn't write the name of what she was: a wa wam owm owamn womn

For one thing, it is hard for me to let a sentence stand if I see something wrong with it. Even when I'm writing a grocery list it is hard for me not to correct a misspelling.

The word "fine" is the greatest abbreviation and obviously wrong.

What was a face on television but a code, and what was the difference between these faces but a realignment of line and color to shift among signals? If he grasped deeply this language of symbols, grasped it beneath the surface, he could course through the currents of authority as they coursed through him like heat or the tremble of cold.

A morte combina muito com latim, não tem coisa que combine tanto com latim como a morte.

We might knit that knot with our tongues that we shall never undo with our teeth.

I have feelings, but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.

It is not possible even to state the doctrine of an atheistic creation without using the language of theism in the statement.

A national language is a national tie', Noah Webster

Silly language was very much a part of our lives so stringing together nice sentences and being conscious of interesting words were the sorts of things I enjoyed as a child.

If I could communicate only by words on a page, how much more satisfactory I would be!