Quotes About Language

There is sometimes a feeling in crime fiction that good writing gets in the way of story. I have never felt that way. All you have is language. Why write beneath yourself? It's an act of respect for the reader as much as yourself.

Perhaps first and foremost is the challenge of taking what I find as a reader and making it into a poem that, primarily, has to be a plausible poem in English.

I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.

Do not be taken in by 'insiderisms.' Fledgling columnists, eager to impress readers with their grasp of journalistic jargon, are drawn to such arcane spellings as 'lede.' Where they lede, do not follow.

I expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language, I expect them to have read books - there are a lot of people like that! That's my audience.

If I use the word 'khichdi' in my novel, I don't have to get into the trouble of explaining that it is a dish of rice and lentils. My Indian readers know it.

Language description and metaphors seem readily available. The things I have to work harder at are plot, pacing, and form.

My love of reading and the English language is something given to me by my parents, and I've passed it on to my children.

Reading a poem aloud to an audience is gestural as much as precise.

If you take away the gift of reading, you create the gift of listening.

Algebra looked like Chinese characters to me, and I could never get into reading Shakespeare. I just did not get it.

It hurts a lot when you cannot really comprehend what a person is saying in a meeting, or you don't even understand what you're reading in your contract.

Always keep absorbing art and looking at paintings and reading books and watching movies in other languages, just getting to know the world at hand and the world of the past. It's important to keep absorbing the world and keep engaging with it, and often that means not thinking about movies and thinking about other things.

DNA is a code of four letters; proteins are made up of amino acids which come in 20 forms. So the ribosome is a very clever machine that reads one language and operates in another.

When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end.

I'm very comfortable with an R-rating. I feel like it sounds like what people talk like in real life; I think it's more real to me.

If you read scripts, you would see people rarely speak like that in real life, in complete sentences.

When I found out my parents wanted to homeschool me, I was so bummed out. I missed all my friends. But now I realise that if I wasn't homeschooled, I'd be the lamest kid ever - I wouldn't have been able to speak English, for a start.

I've had fans coming up to me and speaking Chinese or Japanese. It's not a case of mistaken nationality. I just don't think they realise that we don't all speak the same language.

I wanted a new experience, to learn another language. I wanted to be different. I wanted people to realise I'm taking my coaching career very seriously. I wanted to create my own pathway.

I didn't realise I had a speech impediment until I came back to England. I spent the whole of my life working abroad, and no-one mentioned it. I came back to England and suddenly realised I had a speech impediment.

My detractors are only accusing me of blowing up cars. What they have not realised is that my films have the potential to cross language barriers. New avenues have opened for Hindi films, and I'm proud and happy about it.

I realised that Delhiites have a very different style of talking, which is sweet, but only a Dilliwala can speak like that.

The most common phrase bandied about these days is 'Oh my God'. People say it automatically all the time - not realising that that's a form of prayer.