Quotes About Language

It is only with isvoshtchiki—the drivers of the little open droshkis which fulfil the function of cabs—that he is obliged to use the native tongue, and with them a very limited vocabulary suffices. The ordinal numerals and four short, easily-acquired expressions—poshol (go on), na pravo (to the right), na lyevo (to the left), and stoi (stop)—are all that is required.

Do any of you peasants read hieroglyphs?

I know words. I have the best words.

we don't talk about what we see; we see only what we can talk about

To discuss them properly, it is necessary somehow to use a language that shares some of the same properties as the phenomena under discussion. Pictures work for this language better than words, because you can see all the parts of a picture at once.

Language] can serve as a medium through which we create new understandings and new realities as we begin to talk about them. In fact, we don't talk about what we see; we see only what we can talk about.

Today, watching television often means fighting, violence and foul language - and that's just deciding who gets to hold the remote control.

Grammar is politics by other means.

Vianello had the knack of getting people to talk. Especially if they were Venetians, the people he interviewed invariably warmed to this large, sweet-tempered man who gave every appearance of speaking Italian reluctantly, who was only too glad to lapse into their common dialect, a linguistic change that often carried its speakers along to unconscious revelation.

I think reading a translation is an act of faith.

Whatever you speak about is what you create more of. So choose to talk about the best possible scenarios, the easiest way to do something, or how you've grown and learned from an experience. When

Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want.

Words matter . . . They really do.

Please. Don't use the Lord's name, unless you're in prayer. It's a hundred years in purgatory.

many are crippled for knowing an impressive word who would have had no such trouble if they had lived in a simpler and less self-indulgent society.

Adding 'to you' after the word 'introduce' will help you maintain the order of an introduction. Never say 'I'd like you to meet...' when introducing someone, as it reverses the correct order of an introduction. 'You to' is nonstandard grammar, and the only time to say 'you to' is when referring to a certain Irish rock band.

The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity so have some little frocks but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine.

Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?" "So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober.

There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.

That woman speaks eighteen languages and can't say no in any of them.

There's a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.

centuries of censorship have left us with very little adequate language with which to discuss the joys and occasional worries of sex.

I think that in the future, clocks won't say three o'clock anymore. They'll just get right to the point and rename three o'clock 'Pepsi.'