The fact is that very few of us know what words mean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, we carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that of the writer, at...

Who could trust language?

Poetry is, among other things, a criticism of language.

The language I learned was pretty, full of passivity and silence. I had no proper language for the issues of blood and anger, yet much of what went on when I was a child made...

Laments for a dying language”:Coin brassy words at will, debase the coinage;We’re in an if-you-cannot-lick-them-join age, A slovenliness-provides-its-own-excuse age, Where usage overnight condones misusage. Farewell, farewell to my beloved language,Once English, now a vile orangutanguage.

Laughter translates into any language.

On of the reasons that I wanted to study literature was because it exposed everything. Writers looked for secrets that had never been mined. Every writer has to invent their own magical language, in order...

The sage does not become trapped in semantics, does not mistake map for territory, but rather “opens things up to the light of Heaven” by flowing with the words, by playing with the words. Once...

Those slight words and looks and touches are part of the soul’s language; and the finest language, I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words, such as “light,” “sound,” “stars,” “music”—words really not worth...

I would like to write a suicide note in three and a halflanguagesand travel south on a Thursday towardssome form of life outside of earth

Cinematography is infinite in its possibilities… much more so than music or language.

Ek is meer bekommerd dat daar nie meer bome vir papier is nie as wat ek bekommerd is oor die toekoms van Afrikaans.

When you are a man of the spirit, your convictions speaks the language of heavens

We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has.

I love theater. I also love radio. I love language.

No,” I replied testily. “I’m pretty sure ‘digital’ is Latin for ‘fingeral,’ so finger cancer equals digital cancer. This is all basic anatomy, Dr. Roland.” The Dr. Roland told me that he thought I was...

There are so many words in our language; we get to know so few of them.

Would you rather be affluent, or influential? I’d rather be fluent in the language of love.

Who hasn’t been told “love you?” I don’t put much stock in such words because it’s the “I” that gives “love you” its true essence and intimate meaning, so unless someone can bring themselves to...

I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.

I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land–every color, and class, and rank; high officials and...

A crucial point here is that understanding is not only a matter of reflection, using finitary propositions, on some preexistent, already determinate experience. Rather, understanding is the way we “have a world,” the way we...

Unless I speak, you won’t see me.

As a result of the work done by all these stratifying force in language, there are no “neutral” words and forms – words and forms that can belong to “no one”; language has been completely...

The physicist had no time to waste on a symbol; his concern was with what the symbol denoted. To the typesetter the symbol and its denotation were bound in an organic unity. There was a...

The problem Creationists identify is with the word ‘theory’, not with the case for evolution

Poets are always ahead of things in a certain way, their sense of language and their vision.

So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys – to woo women...

The silent adjustments to understand colloquial language are enormously complicated.

Polish has developed unimpeded; someone put their foot out and tripped English. The human grammar is a fecund weed, like grass. Languages like English, Persian, and Mandarin Chinese are mowed lawns, indicative of an interruption...

If someone said ‘diametrically,’ could ‘opposed’ be far behind?

If a mark of affection can sometimes be taken for an insult, perhaps the gesture of love is not universal: it too must be translated from one language to another, must be learned.

There is really only one way to learn good writing: good reading and extensive writing and revising.

pollution is nothing but resources we’re not harvesting.

I think about how language works so I can best explain how language works.

there is nothing perfectly beautiful except what is invisible and above all unbuyable.

Never trust the translation or interpretation of something without first trusting its interpreter. One word absent from a sentence can drastically change the true intended meaning of the entire sentence. For instance, if the word...

You would be amazed by how I can torture the English language. I am an abusive lover.

The smartest people can write the worst emails and those of less intellect can write the best.

I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use...

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful...

Language, when it finally comes, has the vigor of a felon pardoned after twenty-one years on hold. Sudden, raw, stripped to its underwear.

The natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in...

Who are my people?”Last night in the rain I met an old manWho spoke a language I do not speak,Which marked him as one who does not know my God.With apologetic smile he offered meThe...

Strictly speaking, nothing that’s said is true. (Though one can be the truth, one can’t ever say it.)

Language is a piss poor attempt at telepathy is what it is. We try to put our thoughts into each other’s heads through language…But half the intended meaning gets lost in the transmission, and the...

There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you’re wondering, is simply this: Everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the...

Bad and cruel as our people were treated by the whites, not one of themwas hurt or molested by our band. (…) The whites were complaining at the same time that we were intruding upontheir...

Considerable thought was given in early Congresses to the possibility of renaming the country. From the start, many people recognized that United States of America was unsatisfactory. For one thing, it allowed of no convenient...

In the contexts of religion and politics, words are not regarded as standing, rather inadequately, for things and events; on the contrary, things and events are regarded as particular illustrations of words.