Quotes About Language

That sand into which we bury ourselves in order not to see, is formed of words…and it is true that words, their labyrinths, the exhausting immensity of their "possibles", in short their treachery, have something of quicksand about them.

From incoherent barkings of desire, man can advance to distinct speech now that, labelling the object with a name, he is able to make an implicit connection between the material it is made of and the work required to get it from the old state to the new in which it is ready for use. Thenceforth language firmly anchors the object in the stream of time.

being aware that the sacred quality hidden in the experience of eroticism is something impossible for language to reach (this is also due to the impossibility of experiencing of re-experiencing anything through language), Bataille still expresses it in words. (Mishima on Bataille)

He preferido ser poco inteligible antes que inexacto

No soy un hombre de ciencia en el sentido de que hablo de experiencia interior, no de objetos; pero, en el momento en que hablo de objetos, lo hago como los hombres de ciencia, con el rigor que es inevitable.

INTERVIEWER What do you mean by "too literary"? What do you cut out, certain kinds of words? SIMENON Adjectives, adverbs, and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You know, you have a beautiful sentence—cut it. Every time I find such a thing in one of my novels it is to be cut.

People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit.

I believe I have several times requested you not to call Rupert 'imbecile', infant. But Monseigheur, he is an imbecile! she protested. You know he is! Undoubtedly, ma fille, but I do not tell the whole world so. Then I do not know what I am to call him, said Leonie.

But it is infamous that they have not told you!' declared Eustacie. 'Je n'en reviendrai jamais!' 'If it's all the same to you, miss, I'd just as soon you'd talk in a Christian language,' said Mr. Stubbs.

Mr Fawnhope, shaking hands with Lady Ombersley, asked whither she was bound. She told him, Merton, and he said elliptically: 'Statutes, Nolumus leges Angliae mutari.' 'Very likely', said Lady Ombersley almost tartly.

Of all the abominable abbreviations I think Carrie the most repulsive!

Perceiving that she had constituted herself interpreter, M. Plançon opened negotiations with an impassioned plea to be preserved from these mad Englishmen who expected honest Frenchmen to understand their own barbarous language – and this in France, voyez-vous!

Mrs Scorrier ought to sit at the bottom of the table,' said Aubrey positively. 'You mean the foot of the table: opposite to the head, you understand,' said Mrs Scorrier instructively. 'Yes, of course,' replied Aubrey, looking surprised. 'Did I say bottom? I wonder what made me do that?

A la gente que empieza una frase con personalmente, y siempre son mujeres, deberían arrojarla a los leones. Es una costumbre repulsiva.

Consciousness may be seen as the haughty and restless second cousin of morphology. Memory is its mistress, perception its somewhat abused wife, logic its housekeeper, and language its poorly paid secretary

Whatever else may come to pass, I do not think that on the Day of Direst Judgement any race other than the Welsh, or any other language, will give answer to the Supreme Judge of all from this small corner of the earth.

This is proved by the affinity of the two nations in language and habits, in arms as well as in customs, even to the present day.

La palabra ADIÓS es la más difícil de escribir de todas las palabras del mundo.

Is he talking Latin?' said the Yeoman. 'No,' said Hubert, 'but I'll be damned if it's the English my mother taught me.

Writing poetry consists in letting the Word be heard behind words.

Experience is the basis of poetry. ?Art is a language, therefore, a social function ?Music comes from the heart and should reach the heart again ?Experience is the basis of poetry. ?Art is a language, therefore, a social function

We live in our language like blind men walking on the edge of an abyss. This language is laden with future catastrophes. The day will come when it will turn against those who speak it.

I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences.

A rose is a rose is a rose.