Quotes About Language

Joseph Devlin

In order to speak and write the English language correctly, it is imperative that the fundamental principles of the Grammar be mastered, for no matter how much we may read of the best authors, no matter how much we may associate with and imitate the best speakers

comma: John, you are a good man. In numeration, commas are used to express periods of three figures: Mountains 25,000 feet high; 1,000,000 dollars. The Semicolon marks a slighter connection than the

there is no faculty so weak as the English faculty," which is "the common catch-all for aspirants to the birch who are too lazy or too feeble in intelligence to acquire any sort of exact knowledge, and the professional incompetence of its typical ornament is matched only by his hollow cocksureness." In a passing reference to Emory University he mentions "the students there incarcerated.

Actions of Speech The next group of unskillful actions revolves around speech.

A healthy self and an empty self are not contradictory; it just appears so because we use the same language to describe two different things. The whole path of meditation is about understanding that the self as an unchanging entity is a fiction, an illusory mental construct.

Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.

Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was ever very nice; everyone spoke to him, and no one ever said anything.

It isn't even good grammar. What the hell does it mean when they disappear somebody?

When the first American colonies were founded, William Bradford—Webster's distinguished ancestor—spelled the same word differently in the same sentence; his orthography and grammar were regarded as legitimate expressions of his personality.

Never finish a negative statement; reverse it, immediately, and wonders will happen in your life.

and then tried to use it outside the classroom, you know that there are three things you must master: how the language is structured (grammar), how to name things you want to talk about (vocabulary), and the customary and effective ways

Let this meeting be as cryptic—as representative/nonrepresentative—as the Arameans, a people that never had a land of their own but still managed to leave behind their language—the only thing they left behind, their language. Aramaic. Ha lachma anya. This is the bread of affliction. Eli Eli lama shavaktani? Father, Father, why didn't Christ quote the Psalms in Hebrew—was he that inept, or does excruciation always call for the vernacular?

If you can get by with quotes from The Godfather and nothing you say matters, that's pretty bleak, don't you think? Don't we want what we say to matter?

You are talking crazy-person talk. Put your words in word places please.

To read makes our speaking English good.

The English Language is my bitch. Or I don't speak it very well. Whatever.

I wanted to see everything. It was around the time I acquired language, or even before that time, when something happened that changed my relationship to the spin of the world. My concept of language, of what was possible with music was changed by this revelatory moment. It changed even the way I look at the sun.

How do I say it? In this language there are no words for how the real world collapses. I could say it in my own and the sacred mounds would come into focus, but I couldn't take it in this dingy envelope. So I look at the stars in this strange city, frozen to the back of the sky, the only promises that ever make sense.

All cultures and peoples turn to poetry during times of celebration, transformation and challenge—those times when ordinary language cannot carry meaning beyond our understanding.

This is my heart. It is a good heart. Weaves a membrane of mist and fire. When we speak love in the flower world My heart is close enough to sing to you in a language too clumsy for human words.

I had come this far without the elegance of speech. ... I could not speak coherently. I stuttered in my mind. I could not express my perception of the sacred. I could speak everyday language: Please pass the salt. I would like . . . When are we going . . . I'll meet you there. I wanted the intricate and metaphorical language of my ancestors to pass through my language, my life.

Girl-Warrior was lonely For the poetry-talk of the Old Ones. They spoke in metaphor, A way of language that alerted her imagination To the presence of mystery Where there was always a light on in the mica windows Of her soul's house Where knowledge did not depend on words Of faulty human languages.

I have forgotten the reason, forgive me. I have forgotten my name in the language I was born to, forgive me.