Quotes About Idioms

#1. Foreign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are bilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and think in many different idioms.

John Millington Synge

#2. Idioms are a big thing in Ireland. They want to fill the time, to show how good they are at talk - it's a talk-off

Dylan Moran

#3. Since at least the Middle Ages, philosophers and philologists have dreamed of curing natural languages of their flaws by constructing entirely new idioms according to orderly, logical principles.

Joshua Foer

#4. A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them.

Gilbert Ryle

#5. I do not believe in pure idioms. I think there is naturally a desire, for whoever speaks or writes, to sign in an idiomatic, irreplaceable manner.

Jacques Derrida

#6. To make the bloody thing talk the way I do when I'm on a verbal roll, in my idioms and rhythms.

Gary Lucas

#7. The development of new instrumental and vocal idioms has been one of the remarkable phenomena of recent music.

George Crumb

#8. I twisted words, phrases, and idioms around,
and deftly nixed the budding metaphor bounds.
Voila, a virtual book in a blog became softbound!

Rebecca Rose Orton

#9. ... it is not just that moral conclusions can not be justified in the way that they once were ; but the loss of the possibility of such justification signals a correlative change in the meaning of moral idioms

Alasdair MacIntyre

#10. March brought the news of Frederick's marriage. He and Dolores wrote; she in Spanish-English, as was but natural, and he with little turns and inversions of words which proved how far the idioms of his bride's country were infecting him.

Elizabeth Gaskell

#11. [T]here is a methodological bias in favor of taking natural discourse literally, other things being equal. For example, unless there are clear reasons for construing discourse as ambiguous, elliptical, or involving special idioms, we should not so construe it.

Tyler Burge

#12. The hardest portion of English, I must say it: Idioms.

Flula Borg

#13. Tuan volgen oketh ama. I said, using on eof my favorite Siaru idioms. It meant 'don't let it make you crazy' but it translated literally as: 'don't put a spoon in your eye over it.

Patrick Rothfuss

#14. It seemed to me that the human beings I met reacted pretty much the same to the same stimuli. Different idioms,yes. Circumstances and conditions having power to influence, yes. Inherent difference, no.

Zora Neale Hurston

#15. He had a penchant for idioms, sayings, proverbs and the like; some of which he invented or used in a way that was incomprehensible to me,

Javier Marias

#16. A lovely evening of new idioms and fresh mozzarella.

Elizabeth Gilbert

#17. God has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. It's the same in religion.

Huston Smith

#18. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

George Orwell

#19. By using stale metaphors, similes and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.

George Orwell

#20. In a relentlessly commercial culture, the communication of our private meanings has been vaguely corrupted around the edges by the toxic idioms of merchandising.

Charles Baxter

#21. You can't buy time or save it, common idioms notwithstanding. You can only spend it.

Eric Zorn

#22. The sharpest tools in the box are not always the best tools for the job.

Craig Stone

#23. God asks us to help each other & be a cheerful giver from your heart to others in need but not to be a fool. Don't ever be a fool

Timothy Pina

#24. If he was going to be boiled for a lamb, then he might as well be roasted for a sheep.

Terry Pratchett

#25. Happiness and suffering are feelings - parts of our mind - and so their main causes are not to be found outside the mind. If we really want to be truly happy and free from suffering, we must improve our understanding of the mind.

Kelsang Gyatso

#26. Talk about a dream,
try to make it real

Bruce Springsteen

#27. Speaking of jeans, good Lord, the man's ass was a bona fide work of art. As he strode toward the nearby counter to place his order, his work boots not making a single sound, those tight buns set off a choir of rejoicing angels in her head.

Tessa Bailey

#28. With every step, I cursed the person who had ever invented the saying: "Speak of the devil". Clearly, they had no sympathy for me!

Adele Rose

#29. I'm so proud of you. I wanted to blow you, like, eighteen times."
"I made thirty-four saves. Weren't you paying attention?"
Isaac threw his head back and laughed. "Oh my God. You made a joke."
"Who said I was joking?

Avon Gale

#30. I've etched out who I am through myriad haircut attempts, outfit attempts, beauty attempts, diet attempts. It's been an evolution.

Jamie Lee Curtis

#31. It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.

James Madison

#32. We're headed for Aleph-7. Panty raid. New slang term for the type of operation whose main object was to gather Tauran artifacts, and prisoners if possible. I tried to find out where the term came from, but the one explanation I got was really idiotic.

Joe Haldeman

#33. I've got four roommates and they all have fur and tails.

Kate Walsh

#34. As a Jew I cannot sit idle while genocidal atrocities continue to unfold in Darfur, Sudan.

Jan Schakowsky

#35. Why kill two birds with one stone? I go for the whole nest
I am not satisfied with my work unless someone's a bloody mess

Justin Bienvenue