Quotes About Language

When Jean Louise and her brother were children, Atticus had occasional drawn them a sharp distinction between mere scatology and blasphemy. The one he could abide. He hated dragging God into it.

That Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages.

I was crude, but I didn't cuss her." When Jean Louise and her brother were children, Atticus had occasionally drawn them a sharp distinction between mere scatology and blasphemy. The one he could abide; he hated dragging God into it.

Bir cümleden s?fatlar? kald?r?rsak geriye gerçekler kal?r.

She was furious, and when she was furious Calpurnia's grammar became erratic. When in tranquility, her grammar was as good as anybody's in Maycomb. Atticus said Calpurnia had more education than most colored folks.

Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.

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 schools says.' 'From now on it'll be everybody less one -' 'Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, wh ydo you send me to school?

That doesn't mean you hafta talk that way when you know better," said Jem.

I think the thing that I most deplore about American writing… is a lack of craftsmanship. It comes right down to this — the lack of absolute love for language, the lack of sitting down and working a good idea into a gem of an idea.

We don't write in the first grade, we print. You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade.

Do you defend niggers, Atticus?" I asked him that evening. "Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common.

The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed 'the', 'cat', 'rat', 'man', and 'you'.

Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common.

Poetry is language playing with itself.

It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.

But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.

But metaphors help eliminate what separates you and me.

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, "It's true. There aren't any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words." I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.

Sometimes we don't need words. Rather, it's words that need us. If we were no longer here, words would lose their whole function. They would end up as words that are never spoken, and words that aren't spoken are no longer words.

What the hell kind of revolution have you got just tossing out big words that working-class people can't understand?

I can never say what I want to say, it's been like this for a while now. I try to say something but all I get are wrong words - the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It's like I'm split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this can't catch her.

Some things in life are just to complicated to explain in any language.' Olga was absolutely right, Tsukuru thought as he sipped his wine. Not just to explain to others, but to explain to yourself. Force yourself to try to explain it, and you create lies.

It seems to me, though, that you always understand very well what I can't say very well. Trouble is I end up being even worse at saying things well.

En la vida siempre hay cosas demasiado complicadas para explicarlas en cualquier idioma.