Language Quotes · Page 529

It is said that courage isn’t the absence of fear but the fortitude to confront fear. And as long as homophobia continues…

— LZ Granderson

“The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached ... We see…

— Edward Sapir

“It is their usual reaction; they employ not words and reasoned conversation or discourse to resolve problems, but the truncheon, the jackbooted…

— Daniel S. Fletcher

My mother always spoke to me in English, so it's technically my maternal language, and it became a kind of private language…

— Lou Doillon

“Language allows us to represent autobiographical events in the past, present and future; we can imagine events that have not yet happened,…

— Jacqui Stedmon

“March 18...[1945] Brief morning reflection arisen from great love. In fact, the main point after all is that for forty years we…

— Victor Klemperer

I was a scientist. I know where the joy lies. It is wonderful finding a like-minded scientist and delving deep into the…

— Randy Olson

“Every phrase had to be captured on paper or it wasn't real, it slipped away. I'd see the words hanging in midair--Camille,…

— Gillian Flynn

We ought to be keeping in mind that the technology is not just hardware and machinery, it is also software. So you…

— Kim Stanley Robinson

Certainly, historically, there has been more attention given in the international media to Indian English-language writers than to Pakistani English-language writers. But…

— Mohsin Hamid

This might disappoint you somewhat, but I have to say my interest in Tolkien has faded dramatically over the years. His language…

— Varg Vikernes

When I tour with a band, things get more unconscious and more automatic as the tour goes on. Music has to be…

— John Vanderslice

I still don't feel I know Hitchcock at all. I find that the more one looks, the more elusive he becomes. But…

— Toby Jones

Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one’s living…

— John Banville

To live in a world of photographs is to live in a world of substitutes... or so it seems, whose actual referent…

— Sarah Charlesworth

My bag is approaching something and taking it to another place. Like words-you take a word and by the time you've finished…

— Van Morrison

“Old English poetry is characterised by a number of poetic tropes which enable a writer to describe things indirectly and which require…

— Ronald Carter

The fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly tempting. Coarse or profane slang is beside the mark, but…

— Emily Post

The arts are not a frill. The arts are a response to our individuality and our nature, and help to shape our…

— Barbara Jordan

To observe the world carefully, to write a lot and often, on a schedule if necessary, to use the dictionary a lot,…

— Lydia Davis

Screenwriting involves an often un-personal process. Co-writers, directors, producers, everyone has a say in what you put on a page, and stories…

— Chiara Barzini

“To put it another way, language is a tool box and swearing is a hammer. You can try to pound a nail…

— Melissa Mohr

What is perceptible to one’s mistrust is the cut-and-dried way that life is divided up and the ready-made form it assumes, the…

— Robert Musil

“When Pat Holt strings together a list of words not to overuse—“Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically,…

— Seth Godin

Language and culture cannot be separated. Language is vital to understanding our unique cultural perspectives. Language is a tool that is used…

— Buffy Sainte-Marie

Linguists have noticed that across the history of language some words start out as obvious, conscious metaphors and then slowly embed themselves…

— Michael Rosen

The child is born speaking the languages of birds; the child has horns and scales and wings; it has a beak; it…

— Rikki Ducornet

“. . .our whispered words, faintly in the darkness, dissolving within the trees—then, fleeting words of consolation would not suffice if feigned,…

— John Daniel Thieme

Do we regard language as more public, more ceremonial, than thought? Just as family men condemn the profanity on the stage that…

— Edmund White

Not only are animals unable to avail themselves of language to assert their own rights, but many fewer humans have a clear…

— Gary Steiner

Breakthrough ideas look crazy, nuts. It’s hard to think this way — I see it in other people’s body language, and I…

— Marc Andreessen

We constantly have ideas and experiences that go beyond what we can say or know. Most often these are expressed in art,…

— Karen Armstrong

“When we have learnt to call storms, storms, and death, death, and birth, birth, when we have mastered the sailor's horn-book and…

— Henry de Vere Stacpoole

[T]here is a methodological bias in favor of taking natural discourse literally, other things being equal. For example, unless there are clear…

— Tyler Burge

The highest thoughts are those which are least dependent on language, and the dignity of any composition and praise to which it…

— John Ruskin

Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man seven different ways with her bare hands, she…

— Ally Carter

“You think that the things that matter are more difficult than words - to retreat from a confrontation, for instance, to work…

— Madeleine Thien

They have our bundles split open in museums / our dresses & shirts at auctions / our languages on tape / our…

— Chrystos

By a generative grammar I mean simply a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to…

— Noam Chomsky

I've been dealing with pressure all life long. Coming from a very poor family in Haiti, moving to Paris, a new place,…

— Jimmy Jean-Louis