Quotes About Language

That's Chinese, not Japanese

Ah, Christ, this is the place with the messed-up sizes, isn't it? Like, 'grande' instead of 'large?' He stretched it out all stupid and fake-French, and Christina and I shared a look. "Why can't you just call it a large?" he asked. "You could except grande is a medium." Christina said, "Venti is large." "Venti. Right. For the love of God, can't I order in plain English?

instead of spelling stories you spread silence, which was outside the alphabet.

I have said the word mother to myself so many times it is starting to lose its shock. [...] Repeat any word enough and it will cease to alarm you. Mother mother mother mother . Slowly, so slowly, I am growing used to its weight on the tip of my tongue, its echo and its shape.

The French just said he was a damned nuisance. Or they would have had they the good fortune to speak English. Instead being French they were forced to say it in their own language.

Such were the men on whom an immature king from a foreign culture, speaking a foreign tongue

The name might have derived from the Portuguese word brasa, meaning glowing coal

Eventually, Magellan gave the Indians a name—Pathagoni, a neologism

Yet, there is another robe that wisdom yet clothes Herself, and of which we must, in most persuasive language induce Her to remove for us. As Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton wrote in Zanoni 'What is it that conceals itself behind this veil?' The fabric is not as coarse as silk but morphic instead; Her diaphanous robe is woven of pure energy.

We change our DNA through the intoned word.

How can you tell if a Chinese poem is a good poem if you do not read the kind of Chinese in which it is written? Certain realms of experience charge an entrance fee. To evaluate certain experiences a person must have encountered that realm of experience in some fashion. He or she must have access to that realm.

I'd go to his classes so that I'd be able to speak his language, the language of science. When he took the podium, he always began by saying, "Fellow students…" He taught me the humility of knowing that we were all, always, students, and that to stop being a student was to stop living. When

nous devons faire semblant de parler la même langue d'être emplis des mêmes mots

"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried my uncle Toby—"but nothing to this."

Nay, it ain't got fleas, and 'tis a girl .

La mayoría de los muertos callan. Ya no dicen nada. Literalmente ya lo han dicho todo. Pero no sucede así con los poetas. Los poetas siguen hablando

Unübersetzbar. Du weißt, Niederländisch ist eine Geheimsprache, die dazu bestimmt ist andere auszuschließen.

Language is something you inherit, it's never just you doing the talking, which helps when you're pretending.

Did you not understand me? You need me to speak in Ebonics?

For her the magic was not what words had been, but what they were capable of: their ability to sketch, with one sweeping brushstroke, the contours of an experience, the form of a feeling. How they could make the effable effable, how they could never be fully unraveled, it held infinite mysteries and wonders and sometimes all you could do was stand agape, rubbing your eyes, trying to see properly.

Poems of Akhmatova, selected and translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward, gives

For her the magic was not what words had been, but what they were capable of: their ability to sketch, with one sweeping brushstroke, the contours of an experience, the form of a feeling.

I'd sooner wear white shoes in February, drink unsweetened tea, and eat Miracle Whip instead of Duke's than utter the words 'you guys'.

I have several close friends who have run marathons, a word that is actually derived from two Swahili words: mara , which means 'to die a horrible death', and thon , which means 'for a stupid T-shirt.' Look it up.