Quotes About Language

French is the language that turns dirt into romance.

Grammar is...the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.

Why does she have to be such a...such a... Go on, I said. The truth is never cussing, Son. Such a bitch!

The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story.... Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction.

Words had a way of creating their own imperatives.

Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story  . . . . to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.

When we grow up, concepts gradually get easier and we leave the images to the poets

There are also books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words - the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers that won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.

Strunk and White don't speculate as to why so many writers are attracted to passive verbs, but I'm willing to; I think timid writers like them for the same reason timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe.

He pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the [bathrooms] instead--black cutout man, black cutout woman. The man had his legs apart, the woman had hers together. Pretty much the story of the human race in sign language.

My tongue runs like a supermarket conveyor belt on payday.

They ought to make it a law that you have to get a license, or at least a learner's permit, before you're allowed to talk. Until you pass your Talker's Test, you should have to be a mute.

if you reach the age of twenty-five or thirty without knowing how to spell (TOTALLY, not TODILLY), or capitalize in the proper places (White House, not white-house), or write a sentence containing both a noun AND a verb, you're probably never going to know.

One either absorbs the grammatical principles of one's native language in conversation and in reading or one does not. What Sophomore English does (or tries to do) is little more than the naming of parts.

Words are the key, the books are the door.

In modern society the term "no" have changed meaning. It now seems to be an abbreviation for "Negotiations Open".

Using the word chic while insulting someone doesn't make it okay.

Me to Comma: I will never get use to you wanting to butt your way into my sentences -- even if you're right.

Grammar, you're the pickiest noun I know.

And I learned that it's a bad idea to curse if you're in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can.

Death is only a translation of life into another language.

There is a rhythm to our language. they echo the rhythm of our life.

When you are falling short in vocabulary to explain the emotion in your story.Than you are writing the right story

A slip of the foot is better than a slip of the tongue.