2,489 Quotes About Language

This was safe enough — the shape didn't move, at least — but it could do terrible thing to, let us say, the gyroscope of the soul.

For the first time, I understood the ancients' need to find explanations for why things happen. It's a quintessential human imperative. Random is not emotionally satisfying. Therefore, lightning was the bolt from an angry god. Crop failure was punishment for failing to honor the gods with a fatted calf. The plague happened because you took the Lord's name in vain or coveted your neighbor's wife. Going to church regularly and praying could forestall illness. And on and on.

There is no 'cat language.' Painful as it is for us to admit, they don't need one!

I am not sure if we are numbed to the reality of rape, but here's the sad irony. While the word rape can add an edginess to your language, talking about actual rape is taboo. I didn't know this until one of my friends was raped. Then I knew this, because I didn't want to tell anyone. If she were mugged, I would have told everyone and raged.

Language, because it is imperfect, cannot encompass experience in its raw and primal condition. To verbalize emotion and action is to decrease their impact.

For so many centuries, the exchange of gifts has held us together. It has made it possible to bridge the abyss where language struggles.

Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.

Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you.

Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.