#language

I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment they they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It's the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it's a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They're digging deep and projecting out at the same time. ↗

— Anna Deavere Smith

#language #communication

And imagine acquiring a new language and only learning the words to describe a wonderful world, refusing to know the words for a bleak one and in doing so linguistically shaping the world that you inhabit. ↗

— Rosamund Lupton

#optimism #imagination

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. ↗

— Lily Tomlin

#deep #his #invented #language #man

The to Cathal was battered and only one wagon wide, with swells of hard earth where mud had frozen during cold ad rainy seasons. Enna tripped often, and cursed each time she tripped, until Dasha said, "Enna, you might watch your language." Enna grimaced. "I was. You should hear my thoughts. ↗

— Shannon Hale

#humor #humor

What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard. ↗

— David Sedaris

#humor #language #humor

Her voice was slightly accented but her French was perfect. Someone who'd not just learned the language but loved it. And it showed with every syllable. Gamache knew it was impossible to split language from culture. That without one the other withered. To love the language was to respect the culture. ↗

— Louise Penny

#love

The genius of the French language, descended from its single Latin stock, has triumphed most in the contrary direction - in simplicity, in unity, in clarity, and in restraint. ↗

— Lytton Strachey

#contrary #descended #direction #french #french language

When the French nation gradually came into existence among the ruins of the Roman civilization in Gaul, a new language was at the same time slowly evolved. ↗

— Lytton Strachey

#came #civilization #evolved #existence #french

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler. ↗

— Mark Strand

#first #language #last #poetry #rest

Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic. ↗

— Peter Frederick Strawson

#exact #expression #give #language #logic