Quotes About Language

in which letters are written / not in Spanish, not in Greek, not in Latin, not in shorthand / but in plain American which cats and dogs can read!

America where there is the little old ramshackle victoria in the south, where cigars are smoked on the street in the north; where there are no proof-readers, no silkworms, no digressions; the wild man's land; grassless, linksless, languageless country in which letters are written not in Spanish, not in Greek, not in Latin, not in shorthand, but in plain American which cats and dogs can read!

for even the best artwork is a static thing of the eye alone, and words are by their nature linear.

some of whom did not know declensions from décolletage. It

le parole hanno una vita propria, come la gente o gli animali. Possono palpitare, svanire o amplificarsi. Passare attraverso le parole è come camminare attraverso la folla. Rimangono delle facce, delle sagome che si dileguano presto dal nostro ricordo, oppure si fissano, non si sa bene perché.

I virkeligheden maskerede hvert eneste ord, jeg ikke kunne udtale, et område, som jeg nægtede at trænge ind på. Og hvert eneste ord, jeg glædede mig ved at udtale, angav et område, der passede mig godt.

Alle de ting eksisterede ikke, eftersom man ikke havde lov til at bruge de ord, der betegnede dem. De var allesammen uden værdi. De kunne allesammen til nød være latterlige, altså genstande for hånlige og ligegyldige morsomheder.

Every poem holds the unspeakable inside it. The unsayable... The thing that you can't really say because it's too complicated. It's too complex for us. Every poem has that silence deep in the center of it.

innuendos—and sometimes they weren't even

Archaeological materials are not mute. They speak their own language. And they need to be used for the great source they are to help unravel the spirituality of those of our ancestors who predate the Indo-Europeans by many thousands of years.

A degree from UC Berkeley will never change the fact that I cannot understand my grandfather when he asks for more coffee." —Esther G. Belin (Navajo) from In the Cycle of the Whirl. L

They sent out notices to all the tribal leaders, and they told us we could have whatever we wanted: Prairie Niggers, if the New Jersey team did not object, Redskins, Savages, Warriors, Heathens, Braves, Bucks—and of course the cheerleaders would be the Squaws, unless we wanted to modernize the language and just call them the Cunts. But

Precise language surprises like a dancer's extra second of stillness in mid-air; word and experience come together in an irreproducible moment of epiphanic delight. The next time the word appears, it may have a different feel or color or emphasis. Contexts change; usage changes; assigned meaning shifts; words accrue rings of history like trees and become more dense with life.

Naming is an exercise of power. Renaming involves a transfer of power. Unnaming is a stripping of power from the unnamed and often an abuse of power on the part of those who presume to reduce names to numbers, for instance. It takes courage to name what is being deliberately and defensively obscured. Plain language is not always welcome.

She drowned in words that could not teach her how to swim.

Translation is an interestingly different way to be involved both with poetry and with the language that I've found myself living in much of the time. I think the two feed each other.

When you translate poetry in particular, you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words, sentences, phrases, the triple tension between the line of verse, the syntax and the sentence.

I don't know if you have the words I need. I know you didn't need the ones I had.

The word 'Terror' is so generally and universally used in connection with everyday trivial matters that it is apt to fail to convey, when intended to do so, its real meaning.

I was always getting run-down from jet lag and being in strange towns where I didn't speak the language or know what the food was like.

The gentle art of gastronomy is a friendly one. It hurdles the language barrier, makes friends among civilized people, and warms the heart.

We were raised in an Italian-American household, although we didn't speak Italian in the house. We were very proud of being Italian, and had Italian music, ate Italian food.

Whoever thought a tiny candy bar should be called fun size was a moron.

Beneatha: You didn't tell us what Alaiyo means... for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something... ... Asagai: It means... it means One for Whom Bread--Food--Is Not Enough.