Quotes About Language

Words are what drives the world. Don't ever forget that, boy. People want words, and the less they understand them, the more effective they are.

Kindness: A language which the dumb can speak, and the deaf can understand.

The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.

There is language going on out there- the language of the wild. Roars, snorts, trumpets, squeals, whoops, and chirps all have meaning derived over eons of expression... We have yet to become fluent in the language -and music- of the wild.

Storytelling is storytelling no matter what your medium is. And the language of film is also the same. You're still using close ups and medium shots and long shots. You're still trying to introduce the audience to a character and get then to care.

Words have meaning, and we should respect them.

I can order in Chinese, if you'd like." She

We should a hire a lawyer," I said. "A solicitor," Win said, correcting me. "We're in London. We don't use the term 'lawyer,' Myron. We say solicitor." I

We should a hire a lawyer," I said. "A solicitor," Win said, correcting me. "We're in London. We don't use the term 'lawyer,' Myron. We say solicitor." I just looked at him, refraining from asking, How about the term "anal douche bag"? Do we use that in London?

Pipe down cunt

Poetry, at the best, does us a kind of violence that prose fiction rarely attempts or accomplishes.

Emily Dickinson sublimely unnames even the blanks.

La escritura mala es toda igual; la buena escritura es de una diversidad escandalosa.

Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, tuned the English tongue.

follow Nietzsche, who warned us that what we can find words for is already dead in our hearts, so that there is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking.

So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken. My characters tell me so much and no more… most of the time we're inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, evasive, obstructive, unwilling. But it's out of these attributes that a language arises. A language, I repeat, where under what is said, another thing is being said.

I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?' I said not particularly.

Do you defend niggers, Atticus? I asked him that evening. Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common. 's what everybody at school says. From now on it'll be everybody less one-- Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school?

Jen and I were accustomed to our father's last-will-and-testament diction, and were at times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.

She was born in the Objective case.

Scout- .. Uncle Jack? Uncle Jack- Ma'am? Scout- What's a whore-lady?

Pleading's little more than putting on paper what you want to say.

You like words like damn and hell now, don't you?" I said I reckoned so. "Well I don't," said Uncle Jack, "not unless there's extreme provocation connected with 'em. I'll be here a week, and I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?" I said not particularly.

Would You Speak to Jesus If You Met Him on the Street? Reverend Moorehead doubted that you could even if you wanted to, because Jesus probably spoke Aramaic.)