Quotes About Language

Poets are seen as the caretakers of language, so working with words no matter what the form is what we do.

The Language Poets are writing only about language itself. The Ashbery poets are writing only about poetry itself. That seems to me a kind of dead end.

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.

Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.

Writers, particularly poets, always feel exiled in some way - people who don't exactly feel at home, so they try to find a home in language.

I think that's what poets try to do: They try to sidestep neurology and go straight to meaning.

With poets, the choice of words is invariably more telling than the story line; that's why the best of them dread the thought of their biographies being written.

In reading, we are both scientists and poets.

It's very important to say that French doesn't belong to France and to French people. Now you have very wonderful poets and writers in French who are not French or Algerian - who are from Senegal, from Haiti, from Canada, a lot of parts of the world.

It's crazy because I was 10 years old when 'Macarena' was all over the place, and I remember looking at it from a different point of view. I remember culturally how important that song was, even though people didn't really know what they were saying. It was more about the dance and the movement of it and the cultural side of it.

Of all the mediums that influence language, I think film is the one that has the most effect. Not so much from the point of view of pronunciation and grammar. I don't think we pick up very many sounds and grammatical instructions from the films we see - but the catchphrases.

The last thing an Englishman wants to hear is a man from Brussels trying to imitate his language - you want to hear a different point of view. You may not be able to understand the details, but you can understand the feeling.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another.

Having an interview in English is difficult for me, but acting in English is much harder. Because when I'm acting in English, if someone points out bad pronunciation or accent, I cannot focus on my emotions anymore, so it was very hard.

Clarity is so important for Shakespeare.

I was able to learn a new language - a new musical language is learning a new language, because it's so extremely different from Western classical music. African music is completely different.

Most people try to avoid cliches. It's my ambition in life to try to get 'em right!

'Manu' is one of the best albums. The climax song will be a trump card for all break-up songs. Everybody will talk about the language of the lyrics.

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

If we are serious about enabling those who want to acquire what we have called standard English then first we should be honest about change and its lack of encoded rules. Then, together with them, we should look closely at how such people's speech and writing diverges from the kind of English that they would like to acquire.

Music is closer to poetry than anything.

I work with accent coaches a lot and try to do my best to get the Australian out of there.

I've always had Russian coaches.