Quotes About Language

There aren't many abbreviations of Frederica," I said. "It's not like Margaret where you can have half a dozen—Maggie, Margot, Madge, Peggie—

Graceful phrases fell from his lips in polished French.

He tailed off into furious profanity.

The man obviously wanted to tell him something - and as obviously had lost the art of simple narration. Words had become to him a means of obscuring facts - not of revealing them. He was an adept in the art of the useful phrase - that is to say the phrase that falls soothingly on the ear and is quite empty of meaning.

Jag minns att hon talade stockholmska. 'Hesten eter grönt gres.' Hon fick upprepa det; lika roligt varje gång.

Wenn man keine Sprache hat, ist alles Durcheinander, und man hat Angst vor Dingen, von denen man sich nicht zu fürchten braucht. In dieser Zeit stotterten die meisten der Kinder um mich herum, sprachen laut oder verschluckten die Wörter. Wenn man keine Sprache hat, offenbart sich der nackte Charakter. Die Vielredner unter uns wurden noch lauter, und die in sich gekehrten verschluckten ihre Stimme. Ohne Muttersprache ist der Mensch verstümmelt.

De taal is een instrument in handen van de gedachte, je moet je helder en exact uitdrukken.

Wonder 'do we - by the same words - mean the same things?

Painting is a kind of visual poetry as poetry is a kind of verbal painting.

The old language of colonialism surfaces once again.

Language is the key to the heart of people.

The object of the poet is not to accurately describe an emotion brought about from an experience, but rather, the poem is an acknowledgement that words have rendered themselves useless and the attempt to write is merely an acknowledgement of that moment

If I have a creed, this is it: My god is language, written and read. And there is no other god but this.

The passing on of Tradition includes, therefore, the passing on of fitting language about its content, and it is this language -- not Tradition itself -- which "develops," in so doing not changing apostolic truth as consciously entertained by the mind of the Church but amplifying its expression.

Je viendrais à ce pays mien et je lui dirais : "Embrassez-moi sans crainte... Et si je ne sais que parler, c'est pour vous que je parlerai".

Something gets lost when you translate. It's hard to keep straight. Perspective is every thing.

Even in India the Hindi film industry might be the best known but there are movies made in other regional languages in India, be it Tamil or Bengali. Those experiences too are different from the ones in Bombay.

Film does not replace language, for it cannot exist without it. Film displaces language, exposes the abyss that threatens to engulf every semantic signification. Film parasitizes language, much as the animal does, drawing into its imaginary panorama that which remains undisclosed in discursivity. Cinema is a parasite.

Though we have translated deva as "god" and "deity," there is a vast difference between Indian gods and the modern Judeo-Christian idea of a deity. The Buddhist being that is closest to the Judeo-Christian notion of God is the Buddha. We cannot, though, in the narrowest sense of the word, call the Buddha a god.

If you were forced to drink a beaker of di-hydrogen oxide, your response would probably be negative. If you asked for a glass of water, you might enjoy it. That's right. There's no difference on the palate. The difference, in the brain.

Cursing's for the uncreative. They say "Frack! on Battlestar Galactica, and everyone still knows what it means.

I thought it was endearing when we first got together. By the end I wanted to stab him in the hand every time he dismissed my cursing as an uncreative vocabulary. I think being able to use one little four letter word to convey a hundred different thoughts is pretty fucking creative.

In her experience, prefacing a statement with "To be honest" or "To tell you the truth" is a sure sign you're telling someone else what to believe—such as what was "good" for her, in this instance.

Il poeta trasmette: il comprendere è superfluo.