Quotes About Language

His swearing is methodical, continuous, and apparently entirely senseless.

All the words he used in the beginning were gutter words. He heard them and stored them in his brain. Now, as I walk in the street, I look at dogs with secret horror. WHo knows what is hidden in their heads?

MiÅ'o mi sÅ'ysze?, ?e siÄ™ pan tak uprzejmie zwraca do kota. Nie wiadomo, dlaczego wszyscy mówiÄ… do kotów "ty", cho? jako ?ywo ?aden kot nigdy z nikim nie piÅ' bruderszaftu.

Któ? to ci powiedziaÅ', ?e nie ma ju? na Å›wiecie prawdziwej, wiernej, wiecznej miÅ'oÅ›ci? A niech?e wyrwÄ… temu kÅ'amcy jego plugawy jÄ™zyk!

I don't like the news on the radio. It's always read by girls of some sort who pronounce the place names incomprehensibly. What's more, one in three of them has a slight speech defect, as though such ones are selected deliberately.

We are speaking different languages, as always, but that doesn't change the things we talk about.

Ka?dy z literatów pomyÅ›laÅ' co innego. Berlioz: "Nie, to jednak cudzoziemiec!", a Bezdomny: "O, cholera!...".

Shvatite, jezik može sakriti istinu, ali o?i nikad!

What a people they are!" he said. "They don't even know the Russian for 'bread,' but they have mastered the phrase 'Officer, give us a tip!' In my opinion, the very Tartars are better, they are no drunkards, anyhow."...

Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known from childhood.

Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

Now, perhaps, we are in a better position to understand the abyss separating Sabina and Franz: he listened eagerly to the story of her life and she was equally eager to hear the story of his, but although they had a clear understanding of the logical meaning of the words they exchanged, they failed to hear the semantic susurrus of the river flowing through them.

Perhaps if they had stayed together longer, Sabina and Franz would have begun to understand the words they used. Gradually, timorously, their vocabularies would have come together, like bashful lovers, and the music of one would have begun to intersect with the music of the other. But it was too late now.

Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

Dictionary of Misunderstood Words

Ni jedna ljubav ne može preživjeti u šutnji.

dictionary with unsaid words

Tomas ne savait pas, alors, que les métaphores sont une chose dangereuse. On ne badine pas avec les métaphores. L'amour peut naître d'une seule métaphore.

Love begins with a metaphor. Love begins at a point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

all languages that derive from Latin form the word compassion by combining the prefix meaning with (com-) and the root meaning suffering

Kitsch is the translation of the stupidity of received ideas into the language of beauty and feeling. It moves us to tears of compassion for ourselves, for the banality of what we think and feel.

I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor.

Litost, baÅŸka dillere çevrilmesi olanaks?z Çekçe bir sözcüktür. Adamak?ll? aç?lm?? bir akordeon gibi sonsuz bir duyguyu, baÅŸka birçok duygular?n birleÅŸimi olan bir duyguyu anlat?r: hüzün, ac?ma, piÅŸmanl?k ve özlem.

Çünkü herkes ilgisiz bir evren içinde görülüp iÅŸitilmeden yokolup gideceÄŸi düÅŸüncesiyle ac? çekmektedir. Bu yüzden, daha vakit varken, kendisini sözcüklerden oluÅŸan bir evrene dönüÅŸtürmek ister.