Quotes About Language

what young men in our colleges learn through those of Greek and Latin—that is grammar, rhetoric, and logic. After his seven years of study, the young Muhammadan binds his turban upon a head almost as well filled with the things which appertain to these branches of knowledge as the young man raw from Oxford—he will talk as fluently about Socrates and Aristotle, Plato and Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna; (alias Sokrat, Aristotalis, Alflatun, Bokrat, Jalinus and Bu Ali Sena); and

All civilization comes through literature now, especially in our country. A Greek got his civilization by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it. But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarise.

She liked the words; they satisfied her famine for phrases.

Modern formulations are necessary even in defense of very ancient truths. Not because of any alleged anachronism in the old ideas – the Beatitudes remain the essential statements of the Western code – but because the idiom of life is always changing

A quote is just a tattoo on the tongue.

That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride.

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary. (on Ernest Hemingway

You men,' she says. 'You durn men.

I had learned a little about writing from Soldier's Pay - how to approach language, words: not with seriousness so much as an essayist does, but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite; even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions.

It does not take long. Soon the fine galloping language, the gutless swooning full of sapless trees and dehydrated lusts begins to swim smooth and swift and peaceful. It is better than praying without having to bother to think aloud. It is like listening in a cathedral to a eunuch chanting in a language which he does not even need to not understand.

Menfolks listens to somebody because of what he says. Women don't. They don't care what he said. They listens because of what he is.

Women know more about words than men ever will. And they know how little they can ever possibly mean.

he remembered his uncle saying once how little vocabulary man really needed to get comfortably and even efficiently through his life, how not only in the individual but within his whole type and race and kind a few simple cliches served his few simple passions and needs and lusts.

I realised that a nigger is not a person so much as a form of behavior.

when she spoke even now, after forty years, among the slurred consonants and the flat vowels of the land where her life had been cast, New England talked as plainly as it did in the speech of her kin who had never left New Hampshire

I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at

That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at.

El lenguaje es como la morfina.

I guess maybe a talking man hasn't got the time to ever learn much about anything except words.

y que pecado y amor y miedo sólo son sonidos que las personas que nunca pecaron ni amaron ni tuvieron miedo usan para eso que nunca sintieron y no pueden sentir hasta que se olviden de las palabras.

It's like morphine, language is. A fearful habit to form: you become a bore to all who would otherwise cherish you. Of course, there is the chance that you may be hailed as a genius after you are dead long years, but what is that to you?

Foi quando aprendi que as palavras não servem para nada; que as palavras nunca se adaptam nem mesmo ao que elas querem dizer. Quando ele nasceu compreendi que a maternidade foi inventada por alguém que tinha de arranjar uma palavra para isso, porque as que tinham os filhos não queriam saber se havia ou não uma palavra para isso. Compreendi que o medo foi inventado por alguém que nunca tinha tido medo; o orgulho, por quem nunca tinha sentido orgulho.

sonra yirmi beÅŸ dolarla ne yapabileceklerini konuÅŸmaya baÅŸlad?lar. Hep birden konuÅŸuyorlard?, sesleri direnmeli, çeliÅŸmeli ve sab?rs?z gerçeksizliÄŸi bir olurluluk yap?yor, sonra bir olanak ÅŸekline sokuyor sonra yads?nmaz bir gerçek yap?yor, her zaman böyle olur zaten insanlar?n istekleri sözcükler haline gelince.

I found a way of writing where every word was as dangerous as a stick of dynamite." – William Faulkner