Quotes About Language

Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

The only way to learn a language properly, in fact, is to marry a man of that nationality. You get what they call in Europe a 'sleeping dictionary.' Of course, I have only been married five times, and I speak seven languages. I'm still trying to remember where I picked up the other two.

One of my ongoing projects is to expand third-eye technology whereby two people can watch two different things on a screen or type in two different languages on the same surface - all they have to do is wear a pair of hi-tech glass spectacles.

I wrote the text of the resignation. I cannot say with precision when, but at the most two weeks before. I wrote it in Latin because something so important you do in Latin. Furthermore, Latin is a language in which I know well how to write in a more appropriate way.

I am 100% proud Puerto Rican but have lived two-thirds of my life in the United States. So, there will be some things I write in English, but my main way of conversing with my audience is in Spanish because, at the end of the day, I'm a Latino.

I write like a two-year-old, and I can't spell.

There are three types of words: words we all know, words we should know, and words nobody knows. Don't use the third category.

The bad guys are the fun guys. The only people I have trouble with are the so-called normal types. Their language isn't very colorful, and they don't talk with any certain sound.

All the Frank O'Hara types seem to have very little sound stuff going... it's so chatty or something.

Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.

Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication?

Around my neighborhood, I'm known as the American who talks to her computer while she types.

A typewriter is a means of transcribing thought, not expressing it.

My accent is not very refined as it has the typical U.P. touch. So I am trying to overcome that.

With 'Brick,' the style with language and the way it was shot was to create a world obviously elevated from the very first frame above a typical high school.

My mom was a house mom when we were growing up, and that's all I knew about her. I had a really big disconnect with her because she only spoke Chinese. Her English isn't good at all. Being a typical second-generation, you have the basic stuff, but I never had a deep conversation with her.

I think the adverb is a much-maligned part of speech. It's always accused of being oppressive, even tyrannical, when in fact it's so supple and sly.

I go to Uganda, I can't speak the language. In India, I'm black. In the black community, I'm dark-skinned. In America, I'm British.

My wife's half-Indian, her father's from Uganda and she was born in Canada. Her sister speaks French and their family speaks a little Gujarati, and I'm talking about Gujarati from 1940! And just think - Rajpal Yadav in the middle of all this. What a contrast!

There is no such thing as an ugly accent, like there's no such thing as an ugly flower.

If I see a phrase that strikes me as ugly, I'll delete it. Or, if I find a way to say something a bit more freshly than it was expressed originally, I'll do it. Ultimately, you want to try to leave behind the best possible paragraph or sentence.

What do we mean by soft matter? Americans prefer to call it 'complex fluids.' This is a rather ugly name, which tends to discourage the young students.

German has always felt the language that I come back to. It's given a very hard time by most people for being ugly and guttural. In fact, it's one of the most melodic, lyrical languages around. And German literature is amazing. It's just a treasury for me.

Language is my bugbear. Everyone says things now like 'I was sat' instead of 'I was sitting', which just sounds so ugly.