Quotes About Language

I think of poetry and how I see it as just a raw block of stone ready to be shaped, that way words are never a horrible limit to me, just tools to shape.

The Internet is not just one thing, it's a collection of things — of numerous communications networks that all speak the same digital language.

There is no universal language in the jungles; each species has its own language, and though the vocabulary of some is limited, as in the case of porcupines and vultures, the language of each species is understood by all the jungle-folk.

The word 'Terror' is so generally and universally used in connection with everyday trivial matters that it is apt to fail to convey, when intended to do so, its real meaning.

Tears in the corners of my eyes—of pure emotion—joy—happiness … I feel totally unburdened. The load has been lifted off my back, off my mind. I have to do nothing more to prove myself. This is not for others but for me—and to me. Observation Mountain is a beautiful place. A beautiful rare mood. A few precious moments of ecstasy somehow not meant for—or translate-able into—words. Language fails where the tears begin.

Good morning is a contradiction of terms.

Being a writer requires an intoxication with language.

If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry, you'll probably get beaten up. But poetry is a really strong, beautiful form to me, and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry.

But what I like most to do is lie down in the early evening, just for half an hour anywhere I am, and listen to all the sounds I can hear. As if I were listening to music. And being attentive to things very far and very present, and when you hear voices and they're speaking a language you don't understand, it's really beautiful. I love that.

Wrote that last entry in a running scribble that looks like a foreign language backward. If anybody reads it in the future, they will surely need good, thick glasses.

Weber sandstone a billion years old. This rock was Precambrian, I read, a term like postmodern, suggesting that what it names is so mysterious as to require identification by what it isn't.

Words are all we have to communicate our thoughts, our feelings, and our dreams. We must use them wisely.

Children's books, even good picture books, are much richer than ordinary home or classroom conversation

Vocabulary and coherent sentences can't be downloaded onto paper unless they've first been uploaded to the head—by reading.

When the daily number of words for each group of children is projected across four years, the four-year-old child from the professional family will have heard 45 million words, the working-class child 26 million, and the welfare child only 13 million.

The eventual strength of our vocabulary is determined not by the ten thousand common words but by how many rare words we understand.

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

D)ialogue is generally the worst choice for exposition. 'When you're writing lines...you need to focus on the way people actually talk. And when we talk to each other we never actually explain our terms. We don't say 'Sweetheart, would you pass me the sugar bowl, which we picked up for a song at that antique stall in Munich.

Welsh mutates initial consonants. Actually all languages do, but most of them take centuries, while Welsh does it while your mouth is still open.

E não é sem assim que as palavras tem canto e plumagem.

Ah, quel che non intendo, è questo che è capace di ammazzarmi...

toda ação principia mesmo é por uma palavra pensada

Amaro likes words. . . . I think he enjoys their taste.

Words are like spices. Too many is worse than too few.