2,489 Quotes About Language

And if Germans do have systematic minds, this is just as likely to be because their exceedingly erratic mother tongue has exhausted their brains' capacity to cope with any further irregularity

Not everyone who knows how to write can be a writer. Not everyone who knows two languages can be a translator.

In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.

Language is music. Written words are musical notation. The music of a piece of fiction establishes the way in which it is to be read, and, in the largest sense, what it means. It is essential to remember that characters have a music as well, a pitch and tempo, just as real people do. To make them believable, you must always be aware of what they would or would not say, where stresses would or would not fall.

As long as human beings speak different languages, the need for translation will continue.

...you do violence with your words if you force them - art is given - the words received, moment by moment from unseen hands - call it a Muse ...

Poetry translation is like playing a piano sonata on a trombone.

In Iraq, interpreters were ten times more likely to be killed than were U.S. troops.

AimlesslyIt pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. NoOne listens to poetry.— from "Thing Language