Language Quotes

"Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined" "The name of the rose is a mere symptom of our nostalgia for a time when names meant something." "I want to see thirst inside the syllables" "Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly they’ll go through anything You read and you’re pierced" "Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true" "By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth" "Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood" "One should use common words to say uncommon things" "There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions. And words." "Words are spades digging the cairns of those who can't speak" "Art is the most effective mode of communications that exists" "We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives" "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness" "A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things" "Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality" "Translation is the art of failure" "There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They’d have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large" "Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation." "The past is always tense the future perfect" "I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty"