Quotes About Language

But the adjectives change," said Jimmy. "Nothing's worse than last year's adjectives.

Things written down can cause a great deal of harm. All too often, people don't consider that.

Paper isn't important. It's the words on them that are important.

There were still newspapers, then. We used to read them in bed. It's French, he said. From m'aidez . Help Me.

Why hyphenate, why parenthesize, unless absolutely necessary?

A language is everything you do.

Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers.

I already told you," said Adam. "There is no need to swear." "Sorry, it just fucking slipped out," said Zeb.

Bless you. Be careful. Anyone intending to meddle with words needs such blessing, such warning.

speech to him was a task, a battle, words mustered behind his beard and issued one at a time, heavy and square like tanks.

She wasn't stupid. She just didn't want to put her neuron power into long sentences.

Well. Its the penises.

Do you love me, that's all, he said. That's the only thing that matters. It was the language again, I couldn't use it because it wasn't mine. He must have known what he meant but it was an imprecise word; the Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them, there ought to be as many for love.

From nowhere, a word appears: Mesozoic. He can see the word, he can hear the word, but he can't reach the word. He can't attach anything to it. This is happening too much lately, this dissolution of meaning, the entries on his cherished wordlists drifting off into space.

The difference between lie and lay . Lay is always passive. Even men used to say, I'd like to get laid. Though sometimes they said, I'd like to lay her. All this is pure speculation. I don't really know what men used to say. I had only their words for it.

I sit in the chair and think about the word chair. It can also mean the leader of a meeting. It can also mean a mode of execution. It is the first syllable in charity. It is the French word for flesh. None of these facts has any connection with the others. These are the kinds of litanies I use, to compose myself.

Now she said, "I'm up to the four-letter words." And I said, "You mean the dirty ones, like shit?" And she laughed and said, "Worse ones than that." And I said, "You mean the c-word and the f-word?" and she said, "No. Like love.

How potent was that word. With.

Translation was never possible. Instead there was always only conquest, the influx of the language of hard nouns, the language of metal, the language of either/or, the one language that has eaten all the others.

Becka said that writing was almost the same as that—each letter was like a picture or a row of stitching, and it was also like a musical note; you just had to learn how to form the letters, and then how to attach them together

What's the difference between vision and a vision? The former relates to something it's assumed you've seen, the latter to something it's assumed you haven't. Language is not always dependable either.

Language, like the mouths that hold and release it, is wet & living, each   word is wrinkled with age, swollen with other words, with blood, smoothed by the numberless flesh tongues that have passed across it.   Your language hangs around your neck, a noose, a heavy necklace; each word is empire, each word is vampire and mother.

All this will happen because people have neglected the basic lessons of Science, they have gone in for politics and religion and wars instead, and sought out passionate excuses for killing one another. Science on the other hand is dispassionate and without bias, it is the only universal language. The language is numbers. When at last we are up to our ears in death and garbage, we will look to Science to clean up our mess.

The sky darkens from ultramarine to indigo. God bless the namers of oil paints and high-class women's underwear, Snowman thinks. Rose-Petal Pink, Crimson Lake, Sheer Mist, Burnt Umber, Ripe Plum, Indigo, Ultramarine – they're fantasies in themselves, such words and phrases. It's comforting to remember that Homo sapiens sapiens was once so ingenious with language, and not only with language. Ingenious in every direction at once.