The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.

A bar, as any good dictionary will tell you, is a rod of wood or iron that can be used to fasten a gate. From this came the idea of a bar as any let or hindrance that can stop you going where you want to; specifically the bar in a pub or tavern is...

As our larynxes descended, we were able to make sounds with our mouths in new and far more expressive ways. Verbal language soon overtook physical gesturing as the primary means of communication for all human beings except Italians. (Earth (The Book), p. 36)

The irony of acquiring a foreign tongue is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable words to fuel my desires and never, never enough lavish, imprudent ones to feed them. It is true, though, that there are some French words that I have picked up quickly, in fact, words that I cannot remember not...

We think in one language and feel in another.

its badness is so potent that it seems to undermine the very idea of literature, to expose the whole endeavour of making art out of language as essentially and irredeemably fraudulent

English is a beautiful language, a remarkably precise language with a million words to choose from to deliver your exact shade of meaning.

Do you know, by the way, that German is the only language in the world that has a word for ‘pleasure derived from the misfortune of others’? Schadenfreude.

I like the word ‘evil’. Scramble it a little and you will get ‘vile’ and ‘live’. ‘Good’, on the other hand, is just a command to ‘go do’.

The language of time is geometry.

An entire mythology is stored within our language.

Not only the entire ability to think rests on language… but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.

Weber sandstone a billion years old. This rock was Precambrian, I read, a term like postmodern, suggesting that what it names is so mysterious as to require identification by what it isn’t.

They must talk to each other directly, Ender, mind to mind. What one thinks, another can also think; what one remembers, another can also re-member. Why would they ever develop language? Why would they ever learn to read and write? How would they know what reading and writing were if they saw them? Or signals?...

All words, in every language, are metaphors.

Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall.

Discourse is not life; its time is not your time; in it, you will not be reconciled to death; you may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don’t imagine that, with all that you are saying you will make a man that will live longer than he.

be interested” in everything that is imposed on you by the world: prohibition of noninterest, even if provisional . . . .

so is blurred so is blurred in me what white-haired gentleman separated once and for all and said this in the subject this is the object we fall asleep with one hand under our head and with the other in a mound of planets our feet abandon us and taste the earth with their tiny...

It was made clear to me that Music is related to everything, especially nature and language, but in order to speak it naturally, I had to first make myself a part of it.

Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved.

I should think a dead language would be rather boring, sociallyspeaking.

Just let the words fly from your lips and your pen. Give them rhythm and depth and height and silliness. Give them filth and form and noble stupidity. Words are free and all words, light and frothy, firm and sculpted as they may be, bear the history of their passage from lip to lip over...

Translation is the art of failure.

What you should do,” she told Fat during one of his darker hours, “is get into studying the characteristics of the T-34.” Fat asked what that was. It turned out that Sherri had read a book on Russion armor during World War Two. The T-34 tank had been the Soviet Union’s salvation and thereby the...

Without a constant misuse of language there cannot be any discovery, any progress

Modernist discourse […] incorporates semantic devices – such as the labeling of theism as ‘religion’ and naturalism as ‘science’ – that work to prevent a dangerous debate over fundamental assumptions from breaking out in the open.

I do not mean, of course, that we can always accurately express our conscious thoughts with Proustian accuracy. Consciousness overflows language: we perceive vastly more than we can describe.

I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place.

The Swedish language combines the strong manhood of the German with the delicate beauty of the Italian.

With the sound of gusting wind in the branches of the language trees of Babel, the words gave way like leaves, and every reader glimpsed another reality hidden in the foilage.

Teachers were powerful enough to kill the indigenous languages: they are not powerful enough to bring them back to life.

To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal...

Amazing what the British do with language; the nuances of politeness. The world’s great diplomats, surely.

Re-vision–the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction–is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival. Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge,...

The menu is not the meal.

Language guardians have often blamed linguists as defenders of bad language: moral and cultural relativism is often tossed in at no extra charge. We as a profession are supposedly promoting the idea that anything goes in grammar… But no, we have never said anything goes in grammar. (…) When it comes to the proper use...

Ukiipenda sana nchi yako ni rahisi sana kuichukia serikali yake!

I know you do not understand what I am trying to tell you; I know you do not understand, because it is the thing that goes deepest into my heart, and there are no words as deep down as that. How can I make you know the reality of it? The world has spattered us...

it strikes me that the writers most deeply concerned with the state of literary fiction and its biases against women could do a lot worse than trying to coin some terms of their own: to name the archetypes they wish to invert or criticise and thereby open up the discussion. If authors can be thought...

I would like The Discovery of Poetry to be a field guide to the natural pleasures of language – a happiness we were born to have.

String several words together in a sentence and you have a language necklace. My I love you would look great with your favorite red dress.

Better than learning how to speak a foreign language, is to start speaking the truth. But few people will listen, because they just don’t understand.

I want you to learn right at the outset not to play with the spoon before you take the medicine. Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. Procrastination is the longest word in the language, but there’s only one letter between its ends when they...

Until you are there, you might not understand the language and pains of poverty

We must keep in mind that only a part of memory can be translated into the language-based packets of information people use to tell their life stories to others. Learning to be open to many layers of communication is a fundamental part of getting to know another person’s life.

The language itself, whether you speak it or not, whether you love it or hate it, is like some bewitchment or seduction from the past, drifting across the country down the centuries, subtly affecting the nations sensibilities even when its meaning is forgotten.

To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.

i do not say ‘good-bye.’ i believe that’s one of the bullshittiest words ever invented. it’s not like you’re given the choice to say ‘bad-bye’ or ‘awful-bye’ or ‘couldn’t-care-less-about-you-bye.’ every time you leave, it’s supposed to be a good one. well, i don’t believe in that. i believe against that.

Everybody knows love is a universal language, but not many people know it only has 22 letters. Love can say more with 22 letters than English can with 26.