Quotes About Language

Eben would rather have had that knife pierce his chest and kill him than live to acquire an Indian vocabulary, but it was something to do and it kept Mercy cheerful.

Ah—that's the beauty of higher education, sergeant. Never use two simple words when one really complicated one will do.

Potato. Pa-taw-toe. Ain't much difference

and spaghetti was busgetti

Poets are interested primarily in death and commas.

She spoke and he could not understand. The sounds were distinct in his ear but they had no shape or meaning. It was as though his head were the prow of a boat and the sounds were water that broke on him and then flowed past. He felt he had to look behind to find the words already said.

There was something about speaking in a foreign language that made her feel like she'd been around a lot.

He mentioned Beethoven. She had read in the library about that musician - his name was pronounced with an a and spelled with a double e. He was a German fellow like Mozart. When he was living he spoke in a foreign language and lived in a foreign place - like she wanted to do.

I'll take her no mistake no mister no missed her no mist no miss no me no.

Asked to resolve problems in a language that is not their own, people are less likely to depart from standard accounts of rationality.

You know, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Hate is a very strong word, Emelda. You don't hate—you dislike.

Programming is full of odd ideas. Using shorter, less descriptive names often produces code that's more readable overall. The most powerful languages usually have far fewer concepts than the lesser ones. And failing and copying may be the best way to produce successful, original work. - Patrick Collison is a student at MIT.

You might be "just a programmer," but being able to speak to your business clients in the language of their business domain is a critical skill.

Gossip, gossip, gossip. Rumors. Tongues. 'Life and death are in the power of the tongue,' Ã¢â'¬Â he quoted in Hebrew.

Sometimes, when he wanted to hide or not outright lie, he chose to speak in English. He used to break into it when he argued with my mother, and it drove her crazy when he did and she would just plead, No, no! as though he had suddenly introduced a switchblade into a clean fistfight.

Lelia had great trouble accepting this stunning ignorance of mine...She didn't understand that there weren't moments in our language when the woman's name could have naturally come out.

Softie was not a word you could use in the same sentence as Eric.

He had never heard of smiling.

To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.

Two chicks. I mean, ladies... ah - women, girls, whatever the term is. I'll get it. I've got it marked down somewhere.

You get tarred with the brush of 'Lady in Red.' I play Russia or China or places all over the world. They don't even speak English but they know the words. You get a big song like that, and people love it or hate it. And if they don't like it, they don't like anything at all by the artist.

Walt Whitman, he who laid end to end words never seen in each other's company before outside of a dictionary.

I'm interested in why people talk like they do. Like Boston Irish. It's so laid back. Why is that?