Quotes About Language

The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.

If hate is such a strong word, then why do wetoss around love like it's nothing?

The language of friendship is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence about language.

Love is not singular except in syllable.

I would have loved it - without the French

Love's best habit is a soothing tongue

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

Even now, in a good school, there is impersonality instead of close human contact; a sterile, cold atmosphere, an unfamiliar routine, language problems, and above all the maza-skan-skan, that damn clock—white man's time as opposed to Indian time, which is natural time.

Our language comes from the water, the flowers, the wild creatures, the

Many times I asked my grandmother, "Why don't you teach me the language?" Her answer always was: " 'Cause we want you to get an education, to live a good life. Not have a hard time. Not depend on nobody. Times coming up are going to be real hard. You need a white man's education to live in this world. Speaking Indian would only hold you back, turn you the wrong way.

Women have had the power of naming stolen from us.

The word 'sin' is derived from the Indo-European root 'es-,' meaning 'to be.' When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a [person] trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, 'to be' in the fullest sense is 'to sin'.

It had always been the laughter that needled through me, a repeated stitch that surfaced over and over again.....Laughter reveals in the same way a sigh or a glance does. It's an unintentional language. Worry, fear, deceit - they hide in the things unsaid.

Words have longer lives than people.

Choose your words carefully, even the words you think, because they become seeds, and seeds become history.

abuelita speaks no english. she doesn't need to, zoe thinks. her smile fills and communicates so much more than the empty, half-said words of zoe's life.

Listen. Hear the language that isn't spoken, for everyone can hear spoken words, but only a few can hear the heart that beats behind them.

Words will never oxidize

Do you ever speak a known language? Sanskrit, perhaps?

Taboo comes from a Polynesian word that means "sacred or holy" rather than simply "prohibited.

Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But it could blow everybody's head off.

The only place where housework comes before needlework is in the dictionary.

I suspect that Jane Austen's practice of denying herself the aid of figurative language which, as much as any of her other habits of expression, repelled Charlotte Brontë, and has alienated other readers, conscious with a dissatisfaction with her style that they have not cared to analyse.

In the context of fiercely monolingual dominant cultures like that of the United States, code-switching lays claim to a form of cultural power: the power to own but not be owned by the dominant language...Code-switching is a rich source of wit, humour, puns, word play, and games of rhythm and rhyme.