Quotes about Language

The poems that used to entrance me in the days of Miss Violence now struck me as overdone and sickly. Alas, burthen, thine, cometh, aweary —the archaic language of unrequited love. I was irritated with such words, which rendered the unhappy lovers—I could now see—faintly ridiculous, like poor moping Miss Violence herself. Soft-edged, blurry, soggy, like a bun fallen into the water. Nothing you'd want to touch

the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, "I'll be dead," you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul — it was a consequence of grammar.

It's impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact, you always have to leave something out, there are too many parts, sides, crosscurrents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be fully described

know what you mean, we'd say. Or, a quaint expression you sometimes hear, still, from older people: I hear where you're coming from, as if the voice itself were a traveler, arriving from a distant place. Which it would be, which it is.

I take back what you have stolen, and in your languages I announce I am now nameless. My true name is a growl.

Poems are made of words. They aren't boxes. They aren't houses. Nobody is in them, really.

I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will be no longer required.

When Pat Holt strings together a list of words not to overuse—"Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally"—she's not being a stickler for formality and grammar. Instead she's reminding us that words matter, that poor word use is just a red flag for someone who wants to ignore you.

Heaven would at once cease to be heaven if the ears of the saints still heard the blasphemous and filthy language of the reprobate.

I've always felt like I could express myself better in English just because the way the grammar works.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

If we can listen to English music without understanding nothing, and dance on it, and feel the groove, feel the feelings, I'm sure everybody can do exactly the same for each language.