Quotes About Language And Words

#1. And we live in a kind of realm of language and words and so forth. So we can sort of relate to them. They don't exist without us. We create words.

Robert Barry

#2. Language and words for psychopaths are only word deep; there is no emotional colouring behind it. A psychopath can use a word like, 'I love you' but it means nothing more to him than if he said, 'I'll have a cup of coffee.'

Robert D. Hare

#3. My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.

George Carlin

#4. When words lose their meaning and expression, silence is the only language that heart follows, speaks and celebrates.

Akshay Vasu

#5. Painting is ... a richer language than words ... Painting operates through signs which are not abstract and incorporeal like words. The signs of painting are much closer to the objects themselves.

Jean Dubuffet

#6. All stories come from the writer's heart, and all hearts speak the same language, a wordless language ancient as time, and for the writer, this is the eternal struggle, to translate the wordless into words.

Stan D. Jensen

#7. What I want is for people to really grab hold of language and not be nervous about it. 'The Word Spy' is all about diving in and playing with words.

Ursula Dubosarsky

#8. The film [Boy and the World]gave me the possibility to create a new language. Animation is a very rich medium but hasn't fully been exploited by artists. Often artists are trapped by words.

Alex Abreu

#9. From her dubious tone alone, I could see how Karin had no idea how terrifying words spoken quietly could be. How words chosen precisely to wreak maximum damage ticked like a bomb in your head, but exploded in your heart hours later, leaving you scarred and changed.

Justina Chen

#10. I don't swear much; I've taken those words out of my vocabulary, and having kids, you have to have two sets of language!

Keith Urban

#11. So many people consider their work a daily punishment. Whereas I love my work as a translator. Translation is a journey over a sea from one shore to the other. Sometimes I think of myself as a smuggler: I cross the frontier of language with my booty of words, ideas, images, and metaphors.

Amara Lakhous

#12. Science Magazine wouldn't in a dream think about publishing a single Chinese term. Chinese words and brands must be suppressed, crushed even, hold back at all costs.

Thorsten J. Pattberg

#13. He is forced to coin words himself, and, taking his pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the people of Babel did in the beginning), so to crush them together that a brand new word in the end drops out.

Virginia Woolf

#14. Beneath the uniformity that unites us in communication there is a chaotic personal diversity of connections, and, for each of us, the connections continue to evolve. No two of us learn our language alike, nor, in a sense, does any finish learning it while he lives.

Willard Van Orman Quine

#15. The four most important words in the English language are, "What do you think?" Listen to your people and learn.

J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr.

#16. Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song.

Mary Oliver

#17. You see, the language of words was only one of the human languages. There were many others, as I have pointed out. The language of sighs, the language of silent moments, and most significantly, the language of frowns.

Matt Haig

#18. DYER. No, I am not of your Mind, for the Dialogue was fitted up with too much Facility. Words must be pluckt from Obscurity and nourished with Care, improved with Art and corrected with Application. Labour and Time are the Instruments in the perfection of all Work.

Peter Ackroyd

#19. People become fascinated with pictures and words, and wind up forgetting the Language of the World

Paulo Coelho

#20. On the whole I try to keep Modesty and Willie in timeless settings, which is why I avoid all the latest slang and in-words. It won't be long before 'brill' sounds as dated as 'super' does now. [Uncle Happy, 1990]

Peter O'Donnell

#21. Language rarely lies. It can reveal the insincerity of a writer's claims simply through a grating adjective or an inflated phrase. We come upon a frenzy of words and suspect it hides a paucity of feeling.

Irving Howe

#22. Language dazzles and deceives because it is masked by faces, because we see it emerging from the lips, because lips please and eyes beguile. But words on paper, black on white, reveal the naked soul.

Guy De Maupassant

#23. There is no language so filthy as Spanish. There are words for all the vile words in English and there are other words and expressions that are used only in countries where blasphemy keeps pace with the austerity of religion.

Ernest Hemingway,

#24. Any language is necessarily a finite system applied with different degrees of creativity to an infinite variety of situations, and most of the words and phrases we use are "prefabricated" in the sense that we don't coin new ones every time we speak.

David Lodge

#25. say: maybe not in these words; maybe not in words at all, but in the purer language of thought; but yes, certainly, this is what was at the bottom of it all; because children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison, and it was the poison of grown-ups which did for us.

Salman Rushdie

#26. Pictures rule, but words define, explain, express, direct, and hold together our thoughts and what we know.

Don Watson

#27. Those words ... national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language and history), the identity of an individual human being as an object for mimetic representation.

A.S. Byatt

#28. That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say.

Sarah Dessen

#29. The only substance that goes in and never leaves, are words

Natasha Tsakos

#30. This little book aims to introduce the Thai language. It is intended for those who know nothing about it, but are keen to learn. We use the method of selecting 100 key words, and using these to make up sentences and present a range of expressions, so that you can "say 1000 things.

Stuart O. Robson

#31. In the world of language, or in other words in the world of art and liberal education, religion necessarily appears as mythology or as Bible.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

#32. How very odd it is to be abandoned by language, how the future demands what should have been asked in the past, how words can escape us with such ease, and we are left, then, only with the pursuit.

Colum McCann

#33. Trinidad's language is a fusion of English, African, and French, and so we have our own words and even our own dictionary. Steupse is a common local word, and it's the onomatopoeic word for the sound people make to show disapproval, or to show they are vexed, when they suck their teeth together.

Monique Roffey

#34. I know you lawyers can with ease, Twist words and meanings as you please; That language, by your skill made pliant, Will bend to favour every client; That 'tis the fee directs the sense, To make out either side's pretense.

John Gay

#35. And then, this she offered to me, my one truth: "Our language," she said, "is not spoken, but sung ... Not simply words ... and grammar ... but melody. It was hard ... thus ... to learn English ... this language of wood. For the people of your nation, Octavian, all speech is song.

M T Anderson

#36. A conglomerate of complicated words, they confuse, condemn and cajole, created, he is sure, for the sole purpose of fuddling the listener, which in this case is regrettably him.

Curtis Ackie

#37. Verbal jujitsu is the intentional use of language to yield in a verbal confrontation with a potential attacker, while using the language of the opponent to blend with the opponent, thereby neutralizing their words, and causing them to yield or share your thoughts/ideas.

Kambiz Mostofizadeh

#38. Of village: it is not called so because its inhabitants are of higher age on average; in fact, there is no connection between the words "village" and "age" whatsoever.

Jakub Marian

#39. Men and women may speak the same language, but we interpret words differently.

Pamela Cummins

#40. Wise Bear said something in his own language, mouth twisting in disgust as if the words stained his tongue. He caught Vaelin's enquiring gaze and provided a terse translation, "Cat People.

Anthony Ryan

#41. But it is imperative, for our own survival, that we avoiid one another, and what more successful means of avoidance are there than words? Language will keep us safe from human onslaught, will express for us our regret at being unable to supply groceries or love or peace.

Janet Frame

#42. Language to me is a tool a very clumsy tool. And words are garden tools with which to till the soil of one's life.

Joy Kogawa

#43. For once desire is articulated in words it does not sit still, but displaces, drifting metonymically from one thing to the next. Desire is a product of language and cannot be satisfied with an object.

Bruce Fink

#44. Each letter of the alphabet is a steadfast loyal soldier in a great army of words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories. One letter falls, and the entire language falters.

Vera Nazarian

#45. I would fain coin wisdom, - mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men - as base money - the words by which they cheat and are cheated!

Joseph Joubert

#46. The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become
and such lucidity is a form of joy.

Eva Hoffman

#47. But occasionally the feeling stays with me, and it reminds me of being a child - feeling full of fear but lacking the language to calm yourself down. I guess, when it comes to death, none of us really has the words.

Lena Dunham

#48. Poetry is the language of the soul;
Poetic Prose, the language of my heart.
Each line must flow as in a song,
and strike a chord that rings forever.
To me, words are music!

Lori R. Lopez

#49. Language, philosophy, and science are interwoven into the design of words, which are manipulated to create surprising illusions.

John Langdon

#50. Seek always for the best words and the happiest expression you can find.

Lord Chesterfield

#51. A babble of words that no one understands now fills the airwaves, and language loses all meaning as we sink slowly, mindlessly, into herstory rather than history because most rapists are men, aren't they?

Gore Vidal

#52. But I am a storyteller, and that involves language, for me the English language, that wonderfully rich, complex, and ofttimes confusing tongue. When language is limited, I am thereby diminished, too.

Madeleine L'Engle

#53. Many words are in a state of mutation, the pronunciation being unsettled even in the best society, a result that must often arise where language is as variable and undetermined as the English.

James F. Cooper

#54. It's much easier to identify and fix problems in language and timing when you hear the words being read.

Jesse Kellerman

#55. When you're ready to live as the victor and not the victim, you have to change the language that you give to yourself and then you have to change the conversation that you give to others. Words matter.

Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

#56. Word books traditionally focus on unusual and quirky items. They tend to ignore the words that provide the skeleton of the language, without which it would fall apart, such as 'and' and 'what,' or words that provide structure to our conversation, such as 'hello.'

David Crystal

#57. All those things for which we have no words are lost. The mind - the culture - has two little tools, grammar and lexicon: a decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel. With these we bluster about the continents and do all the world's work. With these we try to save our very lives.

Annie Dillard

#58. And on the worlds of five galaxies, now, people delve your imagery and meaning for the answers to the riddles of language, love, and isolation. The three words jumped his sentence like vagabonds on a boxcar.

Samuel R. Delany

#59. Then, Jason looked up and asked, "Do you realized that there are more words for penis in English language then there are for love?"
"I did not know that," Praline replied.
"Can we discuss it later?

Marshall Thornton

#60. So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication.

Garth Stein

#61. The destructive potential of language is contained within the very nature of representation. Words, particularly nouns, force an infinite of unique objects and processes into a finite number of categories.

Charles Eisenstein

#62. Words, too, have genuine substance
mass and weight and specific gravity.

Tim O'Brien

#63. We have needed to define ourselves by reclaiming the words that define us. They have used language as weapons. When we open ourselves to what they say and how they say it, our narrow prejudices evaporate and we are nourished and armed.

Selma James

#64. Sick I am of idle words, past all reconciling, Words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal, Wake the sounds that cannot lie, for all their sweet beguiling; The language one need fathom not, but only hear and feel.

George Du Maurier

#65. You cannot read Dickens without putting in a little more effort. You cannot eat a ripe pawpaw without its innards and juice spilling down your chin. Likewise, the language of Dickens makes your mouth do strange things, and when you're not used to his words your jaw will creak.

Lloyd Jones

#66. The proper use of language, for me personally, is one that enables us to approach things (present or absent) with discretion, attention, and caution, with respect for what things (present or absent) communicate without words.

Italo Calvino

#67. Words may be false and full of art; Sighs are the natural language of the heart.

Thomas Shadwell

#68. There is no surer or more illuminating way of reading a man's character, and perhaps a little of his past history, than by observing the contexts in which he prefers to use certain words.

Owen Barfield

#69. By such innovations are languages enriched, when the words are adopted by the multitude, and naturalized by custom.

Miguel De Cervantes

#70. The English language is under assault by stupid people who use words they don't understand, and is defended by pompous asses who like to correct those people. We're not sure who to side with.

Tim Cameron

#71. We have put our words on steroids and amped the language up so high that unless we communicate in overdrive and hyperbole, we believe
perhaps correctly
that nobody will hear us. In the process, we've sacrificed nuance and judgement and distinction, and thereby cheapened the conversation.

Frank Luntz

#72. I did not foresee my words becoming such a reverie of mimic and refrain.

Joshua Kryah

#73. Eskimos have five words for different kinds of snow, because they live with it and it is important to them. But the Aztec language has but one word for snow, rain, and hail.

Alan W. Watts

#74. If language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature.

Steven Weinberg

#75. I have a wonderful English-language dialogue coach. All the time I have to speak English, he is with me. It is a double effort, because you have to say the words correctly and then act them.

Adriana Barraza

#76. The older you get, the more power you have with language as a writer, which means that you have to be extra responsible for what you say, whether it's in print or in front of a microphone, because those words can go out and kill or go out and plant seeds for peace.

Sandra Cisneros

#77. I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is.

Roy Blount Jr.

#78. The word begone is a Russian doll. A small, single word, which contains so many others; and when all the smaller words inside line up, they look like a bridge: Be Beg Ego Go On One.

Craig Stone

#79. I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.

Frank McCourt

#80. Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.

Dan Simmons

#81. Four-letter words have always offended me. I cringe at hearing them. Can't, don't, and won't are the worst.

Richelle E. Goodrich

#82. How many words are you having trouble with, sir?"
"Just the ones that I've highlighted."
"I count at least a dozen, and I haven't gotten out of the first paragraph."
"That's as far as I got, too. I'm not sure you and I speak the same language.

Howard Tayler

#83. The only ones who have been silenced forever are the dead. The rest, even in the distance, still remain sons of the fatherland, keeping its memory alive and ennobling our language with their words.

Maria Duenas

#84. For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.

T. S. Eliot

#85. I looked up fairness in the dictionary and it was not there.

William Giraldi

#86. There ought to be a while separate language, she thought, for words that are truer than other words - for perfect, absolute truth. It was the purest fact of her life: she did not understand him, and she never would.

Anne Tyler

#87. When there's a negative word or expression-immaculate, for example-but the positive is almost never used, and you choose to use it, you become rather amusing. Or pretentious. Or pretentiously amusing, which can sometimes be good. In any case, you are uncovering a buried word.

E. Lockhart

#88. The Christian faith is mysterious to the core. It is about things and beings that ultimately can't be put into words. Language fails. And if we do definitively put God into words, we have at that very moment made God something God is not.

Rob Bell

#89. Reality is a flux, an endless becoming that is beyond words and language - all language is metaphor, useful to us but ultimately detached from reality.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#90. As a general rule, desire is always marketable: we don't do anything but sell, buy, exchange desires ... And I think of Bloy's words: there is nothing perfectly beautiful except what is invisible and above all unbuyable.

Roland Barthes

#91. Think, for example, of the words which you perhaps utter in this space of time. They are no longer part of this language. And in different surroundings the institution of money doesn't exist either.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

#92. Enter into the life of the trees. Know your relationship and understand their language, unspoken, unwritten talk. Answer back to them with their own dumb magnificence, soul words, earth words, the God in you responding to the God in them.

Emily Carr

#93. Words have no language which can utter the secrets of love; and beyond the limits of expression is the expounding of desire.

Hafez

#94. The universe and the law of attraction speak a language that knows no words, only discerning your intent through sacrifice and what you are willing to give up.

Forrest Curran

#95. Language, at least, may give up the secrets of life and death, leading us through the maze to the original Word as monster or angel, to the mournful place where we may meet Job and hear his cry, 'How long will you vex my soul and break me in pieces with words?

Janet Frame

#96. In an article titled "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly," he showed that couching familiar ideas in pretentious language is taken as a sign of poor intelligence and low credibility.

Daniel Kahneman

#97. The trick and the beauty of language is that it seems to order the whole universe, misleading us into believing that we live in sight of a rational space, a possible harmony.

John Burnside

#98. Everybody has a language or code that they use with their wife or their girlfriend or boyfriend or what have you. It's a language aside from the language they have with strangers. I've always been maybe an abuser of alliteration, but I've always loved it and I like how those words sound together.

Ben Gibbard

#99. Sadness and grief aren't the same thing. It's why they have different words. Maybe it's a subtle distinction, but we don't keep a word in a language if it doesn't still have a purpose of its own. Synonyms are never exact things.

Dot Hutchison

#100. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Winston S. Churchill