Language Quotes - Page 26

• English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.

  Bill Bryson

  Latin, Coffee, Writing

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• Those who sniff decay in every shift of sense or alteration of usage do the language no service. Too often for such people the notion of good English has less to do with expressing ideas clearly than with making words conform to some arbitrary pattern.

  Bill Bryson

  Writing, Ideas, People

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• The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: the power to see, to sense, and to say. That is, he is perceptive, he is feeling, and he has the power to express in language what he observes and reacts to.

  Lawrence Clark Powell

  Writing, Feelings, Three

  Lawrence Clark Powell (1985). “Books are basic: the essential Lawrence Clark Powell”, Univ of Arizona Pr

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• The language of the street is always strong.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Writing, Streets

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2010). “The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1843-1871”, p.22, University of Georgia Press

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• One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

  Denise Levertov

  Writing, World, Obligation

  Denise Levertov (1973). “The poet in the world”, New Directions Publishing Corporation

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• Every language reflects the prejudices of the society in which it evolved.

  Casey Miller

  Writing, Prejudice

  Casey Miller, Kate Swift (2001). “The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing”, p.4, iUniverse

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• The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Writing, Silence, Use

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• Grammar is the analysis of language.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Writing, Analysis, Grammar

  Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Complete Collection of Edgar Allan Poe - 170+ eBooks (Complete Tales, Poems, Novels, Essays, Miscellaneous, Play)”, p.1305, Ageless Reads

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• This is the gift all writers seek-to write language that incandesces yet does not melt.

  Lawrence Clark Powell

  Writing, Doe

  Lawrence Clark Powell (1985). “Books are basic: the essential Lawrence Clark Powell”, Univ of Arizona Pr

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• Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality.

  Adrienne Rich

  Writing, Mean, Reality

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• 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.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Running, Writing, Hype

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• Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Writing, Clarity, Depends

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• Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Dialogue

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.113, St. Martin's Press

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• Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Views, Speech

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.110, St. Martin's Press

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• Language is not simply a reporting device for experience but a defining framework for it.

  Benjamin Lee Whorf

  Writing, Defining, Framework

  'Thinking in Primitive Communities' in Hoyer (ed.) 'New Directions in the Study of Language' 1964

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• Writing fiction is a solitary occupation but not really a lonely one. The writer's head is mobbed with characters, images and language.

  Hilma Wolitzer

  Lonely, Writing, Character

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• There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.

  Washington Irving

  Writing, Principles, Human Nature

  Washington Irving (2015). “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. – The Complete Collection: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, The Voyage, Roscoe, A Royal Poet, A Sunday in London and many more (Illustrated)”, p.133, e-artnow

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• Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language, but it seems to me that every book-at least every one worth reading-is about something.

  Stephen King

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• I am fascinated by language in daily life: the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.

  Amy Tan

  Writing, Simple, Ideas

  Amy Tan (2003). “The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life”, p.181, Penguin

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• Language exists only when it is listened to as well as spoken. The hearer is an indispensable partner.

  John Dewey

  Writing, Partners, Indispensable

  John Dewey, Jo Ann Boydston, Abraham Kaplan (2008). “The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, Volume 10: 1934, Art as Experience”, p.111, SIU Press

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• Pedagogy, like language itself, can either liberate or imprison ideas, inspire of suffocate constructive thinking.

  Hyman Bass

  Teaching, Math, Thinking

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• What humans do with the language of mathematics is to describe patterns... To grow mathematically children must be exposed to a rich variety of patterns appropriate to their own lives through which they can see variety, regularity, and interconnections.

  Lynn Steen

  Children, Teaching, Math

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• Besides language and music, it [mathematics] is one of the primary manifestations of the free creative power of the human mind, and it is the universal organ for world understanding through theoretical construction. Mathematics must therefore remain an essential element of the knowledge and abilities which we have to teach, of the culture we have to transmit, to the next generation.

  Hermann Weyl

  Teaching, Math, Creative

  Hermann Weyl (1968). “Gesammelte Abhandlungen”

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• A landscape image cuts across all political and national boundaries, it transcends the constraints of language and culture.

  Charlie Waite

  Photography, Cutting, Political

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• Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world.

  Bruno Barbey

  Photography, Understanding, World

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