We know there are colours in the spectrum untranslatable to our eyes; sounds beyond the range of our hearing; sensations beyond the tolerance of taste or touch. What else is there that we might be...

Anything you try to quantify can be divided into any number of “anythings,” or become the thing – the unit – itself. And what is any number, itself, but just another unit of measurement? What...

The problem with living forever, of course, is you have to live forever before you know you’re immortal…or invincible. Even the gods, in this way, must always remain uncertain. Time trumps immortality just as uncertainty...

FV: Hasn’t all art, in a way, submitted to words – reduced itself to the literary…admitted its failure through all the catalogues and criticism, monographs and manifestos —ML: Explanations? FV: Exactly. All the artistry, now,...

Don’t most astrophysicists now predict some “end of the line” – an end to it all? Not just the death of things, but the annihilation of everything. Some great contraction, or collapse. Or, perhaps, some...

FV: Annandale defines ‘definition’ as “an explanation of the signification of a term.” Yet Oxford, on the other hand, defines it as “a statement of the precise meaning of a word.” A small, perhaps negligible...

Don’t you find it odd that two of the foremost symptoms of insanity are the hearing voices and talking to oneself? Is it any wonder that language is an area of such interest in psychology?(attrib:...

There’s actually a sort of comfort in the belief that things can only get worse. It gives one an appreciation for the here-and-now, knowing that each and every moment may be as good as its...

Isn’t one of the first lessons of good elocution that there’s nothing one can say in any rambling, sprawling rant that can’t, through some effort, be said shorter and better with a little careful editing?...

The topics which language limits us to aren’t much worth discussing in the first place.(attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

Those who can’t, and can’t teach, translate.(attrib: F.L. Vanderson)