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Language Quotes
"The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs."
85
"The translator's task is to create, in his or her own language, the same tensions appearing in the original. That's hard!"
52
"The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself."
51
"In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth."
48
"Everything has changed. When I was at school and was told I had better learn English, I said: What for? The English are a hell of a long way away!"
47
"This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America."
45
"The English language has a deceptive air of simplicity; so have some little frocks; but they are both not the kind of thing you can run up in half an hour with a machine."
36
"A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime."
33
"One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die."
33
"I think somebody who speaks the language is going to notice immediately that I'm not Russian."
32
"Between 1910 and 1950 approximately 350 lives of Jesus were published in the English language alone."
31
"Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own."
29
"Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."
26
"Grammar is the breathing power for the life of language."
26
"Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things."
22
"Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear."
22
"In the GNOME project we tried to keep the platform language independent."
21
"Words began to appear in English and to make some kind of equivalent. For what satisfaction it is hard to say, except that something seems unusually piercing, living, handsome, in another language, and since English is yours, you wish it to be there too."
20
"All choice of words is slang. It marks a class. "There is correct English: that is not slang. "I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets."
19
"Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing."
19
"My plays are made up of long monologues, which is similar to prose working with the language."
19
"I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly."
18
"The only thing that exists is torment, lyricism, and the magnificence of language."
18
"Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means."
18
"I've always enjoyed writing, I graduated with a degree in English; I've done bits of journalism."
17
""I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?"
17
"We may come to Jesus and ask Him; He will know all about it; if He comes to a little child, he will adapt himself to the language and capacity of a little child."
17
"You learned the concept 'pain' when you learned language."
17
"Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You'll find only trace elements of this language in the poem."
16
"It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn."
16
"In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary."
16
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