#lang

Before you judge me as some kind of 'anything goes' language heathen, let me just say that I'm not against usage standards. I don't violate them when I want to sound like an educated person, for the same reason I don't wear a bikini to a funeral when I want to look like a respectful person. There are social conventions for the way we do lots of things, and it is to everyone's benefit to be familiar with them. But logic ain't got nothin' to do with it. ↗

— Arika Okrent

#language #linguistics #prescriptivism #education

What wretched poverty of language! To compare stars to diamonds! ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#poetry #stars #poverty

The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary. ↗

— Italo Calvino

#inadequacy-of-words #language #literature #writing #literature

His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origin of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul. ↗

— J.M. Coetzee

#language #song #soul #speech #speech

I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. ↗

— David Sedaris

#language #words #gender

I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land--every color, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike--all snored in the same language. ↗

— Malcolm X

#humanity #language #snoring #tolerance #diversity

Language is the source of misunderstandings. ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#language #writer #french

It was her last breakfast with Bapi, her last morning in Greece. In her frenetic bliss that kept her up till dawn, she’d scripted a whole conversation in Greek for her and Bapi to have as their grand finale of the summer. Now she looked at him contentedly munching on his Rice Krispies, waiting for the right juncture for launchtime. He looked up at her briefly and smiled, and she realized something important. This was how they both liked it. Though most people felt bonded by conversation, Lena and Bapi were two of a kind who didn’t. They bonded by the routine of just eating cereal together. She promptly forgot her script and went back to her cereal. At one point, when she was down to just milk, Bapi reached over and put his hand on hers. ‘You’re my girl,’ he said. And Lena knew she was. ↗

— Ann Brashares

#greece #language #contentment

I place my fingers upon these keys typing 2,000 dreams per minute and naked of spirit dance forth my cosmic vortex upon this crucifix called language. ↗

— Aberjhani

#books #creativity #determination #dreams #endurance

Different languages, the same thoughts; servant to thoughts and their masters. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#languages #literature #literature-quotes #masters #philosophy