Whether the vessel is a legal document or a rap song, language is often chosen ot exclude. To use a scholarly phrase, “discourse communities” are often gated,so it’s the good writer’s job to offer readers...

J’ai entendu tant de raisonnements qui ont failli me tourner la tête, et qui ont tourné suffisamment d’autres têtes pour les faire consentir à l’assassinat, que j’ai compris que tout le malheur des hommes venait...

PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

The next night, alone in the tent, Laurent said: ‘As we draw closer to the border, I think it would be safer–more private–to hold our discussions in your language rather than mine.’He said it in...

We can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment that they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to...

We both think love (and language) are interesting but taffylike diversions: soft, simple, perhaps a little salty. If either one takes over your life, you’re an ass.

It may be worth while to illustrate this view of classification, by taking the case of languages. If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford...

[Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.

A local phrase book, entitled Speak in Korean, has the following handy expressions. In the section ‘On the Way to the Hotel’: ‘Let’s Mutilate US Imperialism!’ In the section ‘Word Order’: ‘Yankees are wolves in...

victims” who expect to be free from any offense, and they engender a stifling atmosphere where all individuals walk on eggshells lest they might commit a linguistic capital crime.

The business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands the much greater business of plunder.

They’re not fat pigs; we’re mad scientists.

Music is the great unifier. It doesn’t matter which country you’re in or what language is being spoken, the fans just magically seem to get it. They share a common goal of love and celebration...

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

Remember that lettuce doesn’t grow on a spruce; and it also doesn’t rhyme with it.

More than anything, more than anything she had with him, she missed the language they had invented, the likes of which she had never had nor would again. The thoughts and ideas he had birthed...

The middle finger is a great body language tool for letting people know you’re upset. Poetry isn’t quite as effective in a fit of road rage.

It” was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless.

English doesn’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

The men who made the joke saw something deep which they could not express except by something silly and emphatic.

The common language shared by every one in this world is the cry which only our mothers understood

I speak the language of love. That’s right, I speak Russian.

Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner...

I think it is a mistake to identify a movie according to its language, as if movies were literature.

Ponovo, posle mnogo godina, rečenica, i to ista, kao da se nikada ranije nije pojavila, kao da prvi put stiže sa velike udaljenosti i pokušava da kaže nešto u šta niko ionako ne veruje, a...

Whenever I write a paragraph in English, I first check it with the Google Translator, and most often it says no language detected.

The passive voice could always be used to obscure blame.

Speech happens to not be his language

Because you think your language is the best language? That because you were born and your parents babbled to you in this tongue, that it is the best language to speak? How small is your...

Humor is a universal lanuage.

[…] weil sprachliche handlungen ein gutes mittel_instrument_möglichkeit_handlungsimpuls für politisches kämpfen gegen diskriminierungen sind – weil sprachliche handlungen allgegenwärtig sind.

In the white man’s world, language, too — and the way which the white man thinks of it–has undergone a process of change. The white man takes such things as words and literatures for granted,...

I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules.

Humans have invented all kinds of symbols to communicate not only with other humans but more importantly with ourselves.

Was there little time between the invention of language and the coming of true and false?

The nature of poemsIs a matter of words and deedsAn intimate encounter of voiceIn the ache of the heartIn the labor of breathingA hesitant casting of eyesAway from the mundane to seeThat delicate and shiny...

Language lacks the power to describe Faith.

Marriage converts a player into a polygamist.

Hebrew word for “charity” tzedakah, simply means “justice” and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life.

The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.

The most significant conversations of our lives occur in silence.

Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you we have from all quarters received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous...

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

We want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them what comes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or to paint a miniature with...

As vocabulary is reduced , so are the number of feelings you can express, the number of events you can describe, the number of the things you can identify! Not only understanding is limited, but...

Language is to the mind more than light is to the eye.

Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the...

I was not born with English in my pocket.

Language in the filing seems to suggest that a deal is not imminent and may not happen at all. Since the company appears to have suggested to the rating agencies that it expects resolution by...

When animals do something noble we say they are behaving ‘like humans’. When humans do something disgusting we say they are behaving ‘like animals’. Clumsy use of the English language perpetuates the myth that animals...