Quotes About Language

Ty:It sounds pretty when you say it, but I have no clue what the hell you're talking about. Imogen:It's Shakespeare, she said. Ty:Well, I was pretty sure it wasn't Kenny Chesney.

That sounded like an insult, but he wasn't sure. What's a dillweed? You. You're a dill weed. Well, that cleared things right up.

But man is not just a blind glob of idling protoplasm, but a creature with a name who lives in a world of symbols and dreams and not merely matter. His sense of self-worth is constituted symbolically, his cherished narcissism feeds on symbols, on an abstract idea of his own worth, an idea composed of sounds, words, and images, in the air, in the mind, on paper.

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply.

Good writing is good conversation, only more so.

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?

The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it.

There is no language so filthy as Spanish. There are words for all the vile words in English and there are other words and expressions that are used only in countries where blasphemy keeps pace with the austerity of religion.

Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the discomforts that you paid to make it real, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be in it and to move slowly.

All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

Ay, he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.

I had never known any man to die while speaking in terza-rima

There is no such word as love. Just as there is no word for sorry.

I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

Robert Jordan knew that now his papers were being examined by the man who could not read.

Just two so far," Roger said. "My counselor and I." "My counselor and me," Johnny said. "How the hell do you write books?" "I can always hire someone to put in the grammar.

My Latin is very beat up," Thomas Hudson said. "Along with my Greek, my English, my head, and my heart. All I know how to speak now is frozen daiquiri. ¿Tú hablas frozen daiquiri tú?

than those damn—Oh hell, I can't even remember the name of them." "You're not supposed to swear when we are around," Thomas Hudson corrected. "I'm sorry, papa," the small boy said. "I can't help it that I'm so damn young. I'm sorry again. I mean so young.

do you want me to shoot thee, ingles ?... quieres ? it is nothing.

Os nomes penetram-nos até aos ossos.

That is the way a whore talks. A whore is also a woman, but I am not a whore. You'll be one. Not through you.

French, the language of diplomacy. Spanish, the language of bureaucracy.

went to church a couple of times, once with Brett. She said she wanted to hear me go to confession, but I told her that not only was it impossible but it was not as interesting as it sounded, and, besides, it would be in a language she did not know.