2,489 Quotes About Language

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart"How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,and frightening that it does not quite. 125

Our particular states of mind colour and frame the whole of our experiences. We live under the illusion that we all share the exact same world because *our language has evolved to pick out precisely the few aspects of our experiences that are common and shared, while ignoring those that are completely personal and idiosyncratic.*

Words are like stories ... They change as they are passed from mouth to mouth; their meanings stretch or truncate to fit what needs to be said.

Language communicates the linguistic being of things. The clearest manifestation of this being, however, is language itself. The answer to the question ‘ What does language communicate?’ is therefore ‘All language communicates itself.

I really have a piece-of-shit car." "Is it brown?" "No, it's an expression." "How can a car be an expression?

Words work as release--well-oiled doors opening and closing between intention, gesture.

Can an unnamed thing be said to exist? Yes, but we can’t speak of it even in hushed voices. We can only dance around the invisible enemy. We can only evade.

A fine writer must appreciate and accept the power of language manifestly.

Our civilization comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and complex results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning.