Quotes About Language

Of course you cannot compare my Hindi with a Hindi-speaking person, but I am confident enough to hold a conversation in mixed Hindi-English.

I'm not good with words, and I get mixed up.

Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.

I remember hearing other models talk about going to castings for Givenchy, and I was like, 'What are they saying?' And then I realized and was like, 'Oh, the Give-in-chee one.' I had been calling it Give-in-chee the whole time. I was shocked.

My attempt has been really to, beyond making a record of contemporary life, which is what you inevitably do, is trying to make beautiful books - books that are in some way beautiful, that are models of how to use the language, models of honest feeling, models of care.

What I mind in modern society very much is the awful lack of grammar.

I mean, I have moments of huge frustration because of my inability to express myself linguistically as clearly as I would like to.

I want to create a kind of new monster language for kids to play with, pick up, and incorporate into their own vocabularies.

Like everyone else, I grew up loving the Anne books, but L.M. Montgomery is so much more. Like Jane Austen, she has an eye for the absurd and a gift for the 'mot juste.'

I like the word monument, because the word monument is a Latin word.

When you're being earnest, people think you're being sarcastic, and when you're being sarcastic, they think you're being earnest. The moral in all this, of course, is that people should never attempt to communicate.

I don't speak English, so I cannot foresee a career in Hollywood. But I do see myself more and more as an actress rather than a dancer.

I learned English from watching American movies and American series. And you'd watch the movie the first time and not understand anything. Then you'd watch it again, and you'd start understanding more and more, and that's how I learned English.

Jesus ain't American, you know what I mean? And there is gonna be more people in Heaven who don't speak English and are not white when we get there.

I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off.

If I called my kids a moron, I think it would traumatize them. I don't think they even know what the word is.

I lived in Moscow for four years and really, really enjoyed it, and I have a really deep love for the Russian language and Russian culture.

I remember in 1978 meeting two Ugandan captains in the hotel talking Russian. They had been educated in Moscow and since they came from different Ugandan peoples, it was the only way they could understand one another.

As for the French language, it's probably one of the most beautiful in the world. I speak a little bit and I can follow conversations, but I think it will take time to improve myself.

The fact that I didn't speak English I think was the most difficult thing for me.

Hip-hop culture is probably one of the most powerful things to come out of America in a long time - everything from the music to the art to the dance to the language.

We have a motto at Naropa: 'Keep the world safe for poetry.' It's humorous but has some real bite to it. If the world is safe for poetry, it can be safe for many other things.

A computer study of the frequency of the word "duty" in British and American books showed its frequency had shrunk to one-third of its frequency in earlier times.124 Shame is another of the concepts that seems to have faded, as shameless behavior has flourished, and has even been celebrated as "liberation" in some quarters.

slavery was a worldwide institution, entrenched on every inhabited continent, subjugating people of every color, language, and religion