Quotes About Language

Words are never "only words"; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do.

Word is murder of a thing, not only in the elementary sense of implying its absence -- by naming a thing, we treat it as absent, as dead, although it is still present -- but above all in the sense of its radical dissection: the word "quarters" the thing, it tears it out of the embedment in its concrete context, it treats its component parts as entities with an autonomous existence: we speak about color, form, shape, etc., as if they possessed self-sufficient being.

Thanks," he said. "De nada," said Julius. "What does that mean?" said Charlie. "It's nothing, in Spanish." said Julius. "I mean, it means nothing, the word nothing, not that it doesn't mean anything, though of course it doesn't mean anything, it means something: it means nothing. Nothing is what it means. Not that it doesn't mean anything." "No, it means nothing, I know what you mean." said Charlie with a straight face. They started to giggle.

Charlie wanted to swear. ****, he thought, remembering how his father had told him that one reason you shouldn't swear is because then when you really need a strong word to express a strong feeling you would have none strong enough left.

The Greeks Had a Word for It.

she learned words that rolled from her tongue when no one was listening. Firns and striations. Cirques and moraines. Adulation. Sublimation. She fell asleep to their music, and she woke to it. Chatter marks, eskers, and drumlins. Truncated spurs. Corries and tarns. Kames. Eolian loess. Katabatic winds.

Love is the essence of life. Love is the universal language of all creation. Love is the eternal desire. Love is the life's flower with fragrance to share. So feel the longing for love and being beloved.

Music is the language of the universe, which everyone, including all animals, can understand.

Music is the sweetest language for hearts, kindest prayer for souls, peaceful breeze for minds, and a magical sail for imaginations.

Thoughts have unique beauties you will never able to express it in words.

Thoughts have unique beauties, you will never be able to express it in words.

In a book published at the time, a lace manufacturer admitted that he expected his workers to turn a few tricks on the side to make up for his not paying them a living wage. Soon lace, including crocheted lace, began to be seen as morally tainted—it's made by prostitutes! As Donna Kooler suggests in The Encyclopedia of Crochet, this may even explain how the word "hooker" came to have such wayward connotations.

Both referred to the Affordable Care Act, which is the accurate title of the health care reform law, as 'Obamacare.' That is a disparaging reference to the President of the United States, it is meant as a disparaging reference to the President of the United States.

You say wicked like it's a bad thing.

There is always a point of view in language, but we are apt to notice it only when it is not one we share.

One common function of arguments about language is to stand in for arguments on subjects people are reluctant to broach more directly.

The war in the East were hidden behind a thicket of language: patriotism, democracy, loyality, fredom - the words bounced around, changing purpose, as if they were made out of some funny plastic. What did they actually refer to? It seemed that they all might refer to money...

Be sure to enjoy language, experiment with ways of talking, be exuberant even when you don't feel like it because language can make your world a better place to live.

It would take a while for me not to think of the Greek language as the father who walked out on me

When a female writer walks a female character into the center of her literary enquiry (or a forest) and this character starts to project shadow and light all over the place, she will have to find a language that is in part to do with unknotting the ways in which she has been put together by the Societal System in the first place. She will have to be canny in how she sets about doing this because she will have many delusions of her own. In fact it would be best if she was uncanny.

It occurred to me that both Maria and I were on the run in the twenty-first century, just like George Sand whose name was also Amantine was on the run in the nineteenth century, and Maria whose name was also Zama was looking for somewhere to recover and rest in the twentieth. We were on the run from the lies concealed in the language of politics from myths about our character and our purpose in life. We were on the run from our own desires too probably, whatever they were.

I pursue my case, Monsieur, I speak English, Italian and German, and I want justice in all three languages. I have been damaged by unlove. It makes at inappropriate moments when I should be dignified.

When a female writer walks a female character in to the centre of her literary enquiry (or a forest) and this character starts to project shadow and light all over the place, she will have to find a language that is in part to do with learning how to become a subject rather than a delusion, and in part to do with unknotting the ways in which she has been put together by the societal system in the first place.

My words were smaller than my feelings at that moment. I had spent my life finding diplomatic words. Am I a diplomat then? Isn't it hard enough to play Beethoven