Quotes About Language

The assault on language may be harder to define and describe than his attacks on institutions, but it is essential to his autocratic attempt, the ultimate objective of which is to obliterate politics.

When something cannot be described, it does not become a fact of shared reality.

Trump's lies and his word piles both are exercises in arbitrariness, continued assertions of the power to say what he wants, when he wants, to usurp language itself, and with it, our ability to speak and act with others—in other words, our ability to engage in politics.

Have you heard," he said "that many of our people believe if you know five colloquial expressions in their tribal language, they must always provide you with nourishment and shelter? But-" He paused as though to make sure she was paying attention. "But if you know fewer than five, they owe you not even a sip of water." She nodded, understanding his point, but he pressed it. "Learn those five phrases, Miss Sweeney," he said.

Was there little time between the invention of language and the coming of true and false?

Following the Post Modernist route, we may indeed never arrive at meaning, but not because meaning is not there... only because we are lost in endless linguistic games that are entirely beside the point.

You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work.

A word is like a finger pointing at different things. Do not look at the finger; focus on the essence of the word. Focus on what the finger is pointing at!

I have found that, in the African American oral tradition, if the words are enunciated eloquently enough, no one examines the meaning for definitive truth.

The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.

I had one companion. He was a teacher from the Ukraine who spoke English so we could communicate a bit. I learnt a few Russian words, but it was hard to concentrate.

Even if you have three or four extra syllables, or even five or seven, you needn't worry as long as it sounds right. But if even one syllable is stale in your mouth, give it all of your attention.

A great speaker creates memorable phrasing.

Unfortunately, her mother and her tutors were more focused on what Diana referred to as the Dire Warnings: War. Torture. Genocide. Pollution. Bad Grammar.

I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.

English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England.

I Like The Way That when you Tilt Poems On their side They Look like Miniature Cities From A long way Away. Skyscrapers Made out Of Words.

Impossible. An old elf swearword.

Words don't capture, they release.

Silence is pain. But it is a pain with an exit route. When we can't speak, we can write. When we can't write, we can read. When we can't read, we can listen. Words are seeds. Language is a way back to life. And it is sometimes the most vital comfort we have.

A cow is a cow even if you call it beef.

Because words are a magic too, and they can contain everything.

Soon, I told myself, I would understand what the heavily articulated greeting "get off the fucking road you fucking wanker" actually meant.

Flowers she hadn't appreciated before, but which now mesmerised her with the most exquisite purple she had ever seen. As though the flowers weren't just colours but part of a language, notes in a glorious floral melody, as powerful as Chopin, silently communicating the breathtaking majesty of life itself.