Quotes About Language

I really was the nerd in the car that read vocabulary books. If we were going on day trips, I would quite like to have just stayed in the car with my German and French vocab books. It's embarrassing to admit to it now.

Boxers don't tend to come from Cambridge or Oxford. Sometimes the things we say don't come out well. We are not known for our vocabulary.

When I write a poem, I do not have to worry about using a higher Urdu vocabulary because I know the reader knows Urdu well.

I have enough trouble just speaking normal Australian. On 'Vikings,' we had a great vocal coach who helped make all of us sound the same. But I'm very bad at accents, to be honest.

The language of literature is the language of all the world. It is necessary to divest ourselves at once of the notion of diversified vocal and grammatical speech which constitutes the various tongues of the Earth, and conceals the identity of image and logic in the minds of all men.

As you know, there are certain languages that lend themselves very easily to vocal use.

I'm probably going to be more of a vocal leader, which is a challenge for me with English not being my natural language.

I was proud my father spoke Arabic fluently - his father sent him to learn Arabic from a sheikh - and we had Arab friends. His task of understanding the Arabs - not only politics but poetry - was very important; he took it as a vocation.

Words are both my vocation and my avocation - reading, writing, editing, teaching.

I had this vague notion that one day I might be editor of 'Vogue China.' It was a bizarre ambition, as I didn't speak a word of Chinese. There were flaws in my plan, admittedly.

If you listen to people talk, when people actually talk, they talk in melodies. If they get angry, their voice rises, and it's more of a staccato thing. When they ask for something, they're real sweet. It's all music.

The human voice is the organ of the soul.

I gave my voice to poetry.

In Indian cinema there are no professional voice trainers.

Listeners instinctively detect that when we lower the usual pitch of our voice, we are sad, and when we raise it, we are angry or fearful.

The cool thing about doing a voice-over into a different language is that you get to bring the character of your own culture into it.

I was always quite good with accents - I always had quite a good ear - so from the age of about 13, I used to do a lot of voiceover and dubbing for foreign films.

Yes, living voices in a living language, so it seemed to us.

Manspread, mansplaining, manterrupting - all of it, whether conscious or not, diminishes women's voices, minds, and bodies.

I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.

Men scream, that's why they gave us voices.

There has been this resurgence in anti-LGBT language in the U.K. and the U.S., and the rest of the world. In the U.S. we've heard it with Trump's rise. Here, I've heard language borrowed from the most conservative anti-gay voices in the U.S. used by some gay and lesbian people against trans people.

There aren't any real dumb people in my voices. It's always irritated me about Hollywood dialogue - there's so much dialogue that would just bore a Ford mechanic. This is not how people talk.

I've been a fan of accents my whole life. I love trying to parrot or mimic voices that I hear every day, whether it's a geographical accent or just somebody with a funny voice who sells you your newspaper and your cigarettes.