Quotes About Language

Everyone asks me why someone Turkish is making Greek yogurt. In Greece, it is not called 'Greek yogurt.' Everywhere in the world it is called 'strained yogurt.' But because it was introduced in this country by a Greek company, they called it 'Greek yogurt.'

Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

My dad's French, and I spent my summers in France growing up. So I speak French fluently, and obviously, I speak English because I was raised in New York, and I grew up here.

Far from being dominated by ideas from Paris and New York, Latin American artists were often the innovators. They were doing drip paintings in advance of Pollock, creating language art before the American conceptualists, and fashioning shaped canvases decades before Kelly or Stella.

There's a bit of a new guard of contemporary classical musicians in New York, and we play a lot of different kinds of music together. We do pop studio sessions, and we'll also play John Cage and more avant-garde work. We're developing a language of music that comes with a lot of different styles, different kinds of work.

When we started on 'Power,' I was committed to respecting the differences among Spanish dialects: Dominican, Nuyorican, Mexican, etc. I wanted the language our characters spoke to be as specific as possible, to reflect New York as it is.

I'm from New York. I have a non, neutral accent. It can go any way you want.

I like a New York accent.

New York cops are very specific in terms of the way they talk and the way they handle themselves. All these cliches that, as an Englishman, I thought were from a bygone era or were a bit of poetic license with cop shows - the more you hang out with them, the more you realize how real that jargon is.

I was born in New York and moved to London with my family when I was five. I did have an American accent for a couple of months, and then it went a way.

I think everything should be in verse. 'The New York Times' should be in verse.

One of the nice things about the United States is that, wherever you go, people speak the same language. So native New Yorkers can move to San Francisco, Houston, or Milwaukee and still understand and be understood by everyone they meet. Right? Well, not exactly. Or, as a native New Yorker might put it, 'Wrong!'

Sometimes with 'The New Yorker,' they have grammar rules that just don't feel right in my mouth.

If I'm performing in the United States, I'm able to speak Spanglish, and the crowd comprehends. If I'm in the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, then I'm completely Spanish. I feel like a New Yorker that represents all Latinos.

I'm a New Yorker, so I speak really fast, naturally.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

The heart of the matter seems to me to be the direct interaction between one's making a poem in English and a poem in the language that one understands and values. I don't see how you can do it otherwise.

Acting in another language is great, and I've done that. But you can't do it as well as you can do it in your own language.

You guys are both saying the same thing. The only reason you're arguing is because you're using different words.

The Australian accent is sort of like going down a step in smartness, you could say, because you guys pronounce things as they're spelled. We add and abbreviate stuff.

I've found the world's most versatile word - 'cheeky.' The amount of ways you guys can use the word 'cheeky' is quite impressive.

When you come to the Bay, we always had this slick talk. E-40 made it real famous. We make up words. We talk real funny. When you hang around a bunch of Bay cats, you're like, 'You guys are funny.' But that's our way.

One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.

When I was young, I struggled with authorship: with everything the word meant and failed to mean. Irish poetry was heavy with custom. Sometimes at night, when I tried to write, a ghost hand seemed to hold mine. Where could my life, my language fit in?