Quotes About Language

His conversation was in free and easy defiance of Murray's Grammar, and was garnished at convenient intervals with various profane expressions, which not even the desire to be graphic in our account shall induce us to transcribe.

I never saw any good of the French language, for my part, I must confess," said Miss Debby, "nor, for that matter, of the French nation either; they eat frogs, and break the Sabbath, and are as immoral as the old Canaanites.

With the coming of these people who know the language, we are losing our liberty to speak, he remarked to himself.

Please wait,' she said in Spanish, then repeated the words, 'Esperen, por favor,' remembering that the single verb meant both to wait and hope. This extraordinary language, she thought.

How does anyone think that 'attempted murder' counts the same as actual murder? They shouldn't even call it 'attempted': that's just a way to flatter failure.

Now sometimes words can serve me well Sometimes words can go to hell For all that they do

After all, every use of language without exception has some, if not all, of the characteristic features of lies.

The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.

There are similarities between hot air and excrement, incidentally, which make hot air seem an especially suitable equivalent for bullshit. Just as hot air is speech that has been emptied of all informative content, so excrement is matter from which everything nutritive has been removed.

For the name Barclay, you could use bar clay or bark lay; for Smolenski, a small lens (camera) skiing; for Caruthers, a car with udders; for Krakowitz, cracker wits; for Frankesni, frank (hot dog) has knee; for Esposito, expose a toe; for Dalrymple, doll rumple; for Kolodny, colored knee; for Androfkavitz, Ann drop car witch; for Giordano, jawed on O; for Virostek, virile stick; and so on.

Well, the great thing for me about poetry is that in good poems the dislocation of words, that is to say, the distance between what they say they're saying and what they are actually saying is at its greatest.

Die Frage, was nun eigentlich war zwischen ihnen, würden sie später erörtern, wenn all die Tage in ihrer Erinnerung zu einem einzigen, für immer unvergeßlichen Tag zusammengeflossen sein würden. Auch die Griechen, wußte Onno, die die Grundlage für die westliche Kultur gelegt hatten, besaßen kein Wort für "Kultur". Die Wörter entstanden erst, wenn die Sache verschwunden war.

Wie jeder Mensch hat auch ein Buchstabe eine Seele und einen Körper. Seine Seele ist das, was er sagt, und sein Körper ist das, woraus er gemacht ist: aus Tinte oder aus Stein.

De vraag, wat dat was tussen hen, zouden zij pas later bespreken - toen het er niet meer was, toen al die dagen in hun herinnering ineengevloeid waren tot een eeuwig-onvergetelijke dag. Ook de grieken, wist hij, die de grondslag hadden gelegd van de westerse cultuur, bezaten geen woord voor cultuur. De woorden kwamen pas als de zaak was verdwenen.

Using someone's name during a conversation was like a casual caress, like stroking their hair.

Gelukkig is het geschrevene iets dat hoorbaar is zonder gehoord te hoeven worden. Zelfs het bescheidenste woordje dat ik neerschrijf, het woordje "zwijgen" bijvoorbeeld, overstemt het inferno in die stenen put.

Had he said that in Russian, he would have forfeited the goodwill he'd won from the kolkhoz's farmers.

he spoke a word of pure German: "Vernichtungslager." Extermination camp.

Holy Jesus God, it's the Gerps shootin' us up!" the manager shouted. He hadn't known whether to say Germans or Japs, and came out with both at once.

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.

It is as though a poem gave the reader as he left it a single, new word, never before spoken and impossible to actually enunciate, but self-evident as an active principle in the reader's consciousness henceforward.

Communication isn't as simple as saying what you mean. How you say what you mean is crucial, and differs from one person to the next, because using language is learned social behavior: How we talk and listen are deeply influenced by cultural experience. Although we might think that our ways of saying what we mean are natural, we can run into trouble if we interpret and evaluate others as if they necessarily felt the same way we'd feel if we spoke the way they did.

Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.