Quotes About The English Language

#1. I think that phrase is the most horrible phrase in the English language - 'I don't know.' It's terribly embarrassing.

Jim Morrison

#2. The glorious insanities of the English language mean that you can do all sorts of odd and demeaning things to a book. You can cook it.

Mark Forsyth

#3. If only.
You got to admit, standing alone those words are pretty awful, but married together like that, they must be two of the saddest in the English language.

Lesley Kagen

#4. Something I miss terribly from the '60s - the most important phrase in the English language was, 'I got hung up.' Somebody says they got hung up, it's unassailable, you know? You don't go near that. Whoa! I know what that can be like.

Alan Arkin

#5. Christopher Hitchens is the greatest living essayist in the English language.

Christopher Buckley

#6. With the requests of some he complied, and has published a discourse, delivered before the Society for recovering drowned persons, which may be justly pronounced one of the most beautiful and interesting sermons in the English language.

John Strachan

#7. Never use the word, 'very.' It is the weakest word in the English language; doesn't mean anything. If you feel the urge of 'very' coming on, just write the word, 'damn,' in the place of 'very.' The editor will strike out the word, 'damn,' and you will have a good sentence.

William Allen White

#8. I think one of the best words in the English language is 'compassion.' I think it holds everything. It holds love, it holds care ... and if everybody just did something. We all make a difference.

Michael Crawford

#9. Rock star do not jump!" The launch was cutting sharply, its skipper calling out a phrase that bore no relationship to the English language as Amy knew it. "Rock star in a hurry!" Nellie replied, one foot on the boat's gunwale.

Peter Lerangis

#10. More has been screwed up on the battlefield and misunderstood in the Pentagon because of a lack of understanding of the English language than any other single factor.

John W. Vessey Jr.

#11. The time is ripe for young Indian authors writing in the English language.

Anurag Shourie

#12. Put your trust in god are the most dangerous words in the English language.

Hemant Mehta

#13. In 1981, Ms. Ebtekar was made editor-in-chief of the English-language newspaper 'Kayhan International.' The man who gave her the job was Mr. Khatami, who was then head of the Kayhan publishing house.

Elaine Sciolino

#14. Don't try to defile the English language. I can think of a few other things I'd rather dirty up.

S.L. Jennings

#15. When I go to photograph somebody, they say, "What do you want me to do?" Those are the most frightening words in the English language. I want to say, "Please, go over into good light and do something unusual.

John Loengard

#16. I write drama in the English language. If I wasn't working in London I'd be doing something wrong.

William Monahan

#17. I think yes is the most beautiful and necessary word in the English language.

Sally Potter

#18. Everybody gets a little dose of Shakespeare. He's the greatest playwright in the English language, but his politics are fairly square.

Alex Cox

#19. First of all, there was a volcano of words, an eruption of words that Shakespeare had never used before that had never been used in the English language before. It's astonishing. It pours out of him.

Stephen Greenblatt

#20. Hey," Pavlicek held on, "what's the most bullshit word in the English language." "Closure." "Give that man a cigar," Pavlicek said, then hung up.

Harry Brandt

#21. 'No' is the second shortest word in the English language, but one of the hardest to say.

Raymond Arroyo

#22. - I probably shouldn't tell you this, I said.
- Kay-Kay, those are my six favorite words in the English language.

Amor Towles

#23. We have room but for one Language here and that is the English Language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans of American nationality and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house.

Theodore Roosevelt

#24. The top 10 verbs in the English language are all irregular, even though irregular verbs make up only 3 per cent of the language.

Erez Lieberman Aiden

#25. The English Language is a form of communication! Words aren't only bombs and bullets - no, they're little gifts, containing meanings. What is true in love, is equally true at law

Phillip Roth

#26. I love the English language, playing with words, watching sentences fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,

Jane Green

#27. 'Hubba-Hubba' never slips out," Zeke said. "You selected those words with deliberate intent, and I question your commitment to the respectable use of the English language.

Sarah Beth Durst

#28. May cause drowsiness.' - the most beautiful words in the English language. Once it was 'do you have a t-shirt I can borrow?' Now it's 'may cause drowsiness.

David Nicholls

#29. Don't be ridiculous. Only one of the most condescending phrases in the English language ... and

Christine Pope

#30. I believe it is our values and our ideals that ultimately bind us together as a nation. But it is the English language which serves as the means by which we can communicate these values to those around us. Our common language, English, is that which unites us.

Asa Hutchinson

#31. I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.

Chinua Achebe

#32. If the word 'No' was removed from the English language, Ian Paisley would be speechless.

John Hume

#33. The English language is the one thing the Commonwealth still has in common.

Niall Ferguson

#34. You know what you do? You know how rain takes the colour out of everything? That's what you do to the English language. You blur it every time you open your mouth.

John Fowles

#35. There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job,

J.K. Simmons

#36. The only thing I can say that is wonderful about my mother is she forced me to learn three verses of the Bible every day of my life, and I've read the Bible now five times and it taught me the English language.

Bryce Courtenay

#37. I'm one of those people that feels that Americans that shouldn't do Shakespeare ... The rhythms of the English language and the mannerisms of the English speech seems to work effortlessly with William Shakespeare, but when Americans do it, something seems stuck.

Nicolas Cage

#38. She thought human thoughts and stone thoughts. The latter were slow, patchily coloured, textured and extreme, both hot and cold. They did not translate into the English language, or into any other she knew: they were things that accumulated, solidly, knocked against each other, heaped and slipped.

A.S. Byatt

#39. George Orwell once blamed the demise of the English language on politics. It's quite possible he never read a prospectus.

Arthur Levitt Jr

#40. But even we, with our supposed mastery of the English language, were not immune to the shortcoming of our vocabularies.
Words can only help you if you speak them.

Bianca Phipps

#41. The truest and greatest Poetry, (while subtly and necessarily always rhythmic, and distinguishable easily enough) can never again, in the English language, be express'd in arbitrary and rhyming metre, any more than the greatest eloquence, or the truest power and passion.

Walt Whitman

#42. I'm sorry.' The two most inadequate words in the English language.

Beth Revis

#43. The Economist is undoubtedly the smartest weekly newsmagazine in the English language. I always look forward to its quirky year-end double issue.

Eric Alterman

#44. Is there a phrase in the English language more fraught with menace than a tax audit?

Erica Jong

#45. The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'cheque enclosed.

Dorothy Parker

#46. I resist the urge to raise my hand and utter the four most reassuring words in the English language: I know a guy.

Sarah Vowell

#47. There were not words enough in the English language, nor in any language, to make his attitude and conduct intelligible to them.

Jack London

#48. I don't think you should make so many off-colour jokes about him becoming a cuckold. You're only getting away with it because he doesn't know what it means.' 'That's the beauty of the English language. One can wrap insults inside elegance, like popping anchovies into pastry.

Christopher Fowler

#49. The English language is more complex than calculus because numbers don't have nuances.

Andy Rooney

#50. Making It in Hollywood is the most disgusting phrase in the English language. It's more disturbing than prolific serial killer and rare terminal illness.

Caroline Kepnes

#51. You are, without doubt, holding in your hands one of the best-introduced books in the English language. We hope you enjoy the Introduction to the New Edition that follows this Introduction to it and continue to read on even into the book itself.

Douglas Adams

#52. The English Language Amendment says above all, 'Let's see to it that our children, our young people, learn English. Let us not deny them the opportunity to participate in American life, so that they can go as far as their dreams and talents can take them.

S.I. Hayakawa

#53. There is no other word in the English language more life-changing than Hello

Patrick Stevens

#54. You'll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root around and find the ones you want

William Zinsser

#55. The love in his eyes was so powerful, I needed to look away. Seth had an amazing grasp of the English language, but there were days when that skill was nothing compared to what he told me in his looks.

Richelle Mead

#56. I do not know if there is a more dreadful word in the English language than that word "lost."

Charles Spurgeon

#57. My God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets - no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!

Philip Roth

#58. When the American people get through with the English language, it will look as if it had been run over by a musical comedy.

Finley Peter Dunne

#59. I should have" is one of the most tragic phrases in the English language. Live while you can.

Michael A. McLellan

#60. The English language is a work in progress. Have fun with it.

Jonathan Culver

#61. I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader.

Dick Schaap

#62. Artists are perennially implored to consider 'the limitations of the medium.' Whoever invented this expression exaggerated the limitations of the English language. We are not concerned with what effects cannot be produced with our materials.

Walter J. Phillips

#63. The English language is rather like a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib.

Robert Burchfield

#64. Sheriff Gibbs, the vocabulary of the English language is the wonder of the whole world. Chaucer spoke it and Shakespeare and Winston Churchill. With such a precedent, you could possibly make better use of it," said Mrs. Perley.
"Huh," said Sheriff Gibbs

Gary D. Schmidt

#65. You mustn't let men drive you to mangling the English language, no matter how sweet they are.

Marisa De Los Santos

#66. When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly, I think any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.

Henry David Thoreau

#67. Congratulations, Congress! 77% disapproval rating! You may be about to become the English language's most offensive C-word.

John Oliver

#68. 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

#69. Equestrian, by the by, is the gayest word in the English language. In fact, I thought Brokeback Mountain should have been called Two Equestrians.

Lewis Black

#70. Somebody once said that the Irish derived the greatest benefit from the English language. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter, they fling it at the sky like paint pots full of rainbow colors.

Malachy McCourt

#71. It has long been said that the three hardest words to say in the English language are I love you. We heartily disagree! For most people, it is much harder to say I don't know.

Steven D. Levitt

#72. If only," repeated Rick with a shake of his head. "Those are two words in the English language that we regret saying the most.

Linda Weaver Clarke

#73. The phrase 'blue plate special' has always been one of the homiest, coziest, most sweetly nostalgic phrases in the English language for me.

Kate Christensen

#74. You killed someone you were supposed to love and I killed someone I was supposed to love, and we both understand the pain and the fear and the sadness and the guilt and the hundred other feelings that don't even have a name in all of the English language.

Annabel Pitcher

#75. I had declared in public my desire to be a writer ... I wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and insatiable as well as a desire to learn and use every word in the English language that didn't sound pretentious or ditzy.

Pat Conroy

#76. After I'd been in college for a couple years I'd read Shakespeare and Frost and Chaucer and the poets of the Harlem Renaissance. I'd come to appreciate how gorgeous the English language could be. But most fantasy novels didn't seem to make the effort.

Patrick Rothfuss

#77. I was also in love with the English language.

Dick Schaap

#78. I don't think there's any words in the English language to explain what it's -what it's like to- to sit on Texas death row and your thoughts are laying on that gurney, convicted but innocent and being put to death.

Kerry Max Cook

#79. When it comes to love, the English language bears no shortage of cliches.

Sarah MacLean

#80. I think the most dangerous word in the English language is 'should.' 'I should have done this.' Or 'I should do that.' 'Should' implies responsibility. It connotes demand. Which is just not the case. Life ebbs and flows.

Chris Pine

#81. Shakespeare's taught me that there are more words in the English language than I have got in my head.

Zoe Wanamaker

#82. If there are three words in the English language worse than "Got a minute?" they can only be "About last night ...

Meg Cabot

#83. How on earth does she make the English language float and float?

Lytton Strachey

#84. Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole history of English poetry has been de-termined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes?

George Orwell

#85. You don't have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.

Jonathan Lethem

#86. Among people who might be described as having at least a passing regard for the English language, there are few instances of usage that evoke a desire to mutilate more than the perceived misuse of literally.

Ammon Shea

#87. The English language started out as a distortion in my life, but nothing remains the same, and so the distortion is now just normal. That is one of the things that will happen to all distortions: They become normal and turn into something else.

Jamaica Kincaid

#88. Exaggeration is the octopus of the English language

Matthew Pearl

#89. The English language is an arsenal of weapons; if you are going to brandish them without checking to see whether or no they are loaded you must expect to have them explode in your face from time to time. "Poppycock" means "soft shit" - from the Dutch, I need scarcely remind you, pappe kak.

Stephen Fry

#90. Yeah. Calm down. Two of the most useless words in the English language.

Lili St. Crow

#91. You must have also observed the masculine bias in the English language itself, in which women - literally, 'not men' - are daily confronted with the terror, unknowable to men, of concepts which they can imagine, but which an inherently patriarchal language does not allow them to express.

Dexter Palmer

#92. Cited by the author of 'Lucky Jim' as one of the most dismal depressing questions in the English language: Shall we go straight in?

Kingsley Amis

#93. These men of many nations must be taught American ways, the English language, and the right way to live.

Henry Ford

#94. The English language is full of words that are just waiting to be misspelled, and the world is full of sticklers, ready to pounce.

Mary Norris

#95. I suppose you heard him yelling as the doctor set his leg."
"I never knew there were so many rude words in the English language. Or French, German, Italian, Latin,or ... there was another language I didn't quite recognize."
"Greek.

Karen Hawkins

#96. Thaumatomane: a person possessed of a passion for magic and wonders, Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson.

Susanna Clarke

#97. The complexities of the English language are such that even native speakers cannot always communicate effectively, as almost every American learns on his first day in Britain.

Bill Bryson

#98. There are only about 30,000 really important books in the world. I suppose about 5,000 of them were written in the English language, and 5,000 more have been translated. - Roger Mifflin

Christopher Morley

#99. I love to laugh, it's my main thing. I love to abuse the English language.

Dan Fogelberg

#100. The ten most powerful two-letter words in the English language are: If it is to be, it is up to me.

Harvey MacKay