English Language Quotes - Page 10

• It is terrible to see someone being beaten up by the English language.

  Martin Amis

  Language, Terrible, Beaten

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• But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Loyalty, Men, America

  Theodore Roosevelt (1941). “Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia”

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• The world was made before English language, and seemingly upon a different design.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Design, Different, World

  Robert Louis Stevenson (1999). “The Lantern-Bearers and Other Essays”, p.97, Cooper Square Press

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• Artists are perennially implored to consider 'the limitations of the medium.' Whoever invented this expression exaggerated the limitations of the English language. We are not concerned with what effects cannot be produced with our materials.

  Walter J. Phillips

  Artist, Expression, Language

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• Four. That's what I want you to remember. If you don't get your idea across in the first four minutes, you won't do it. Four sentences to a paragraph. Four letters to a word. The most important words in the English language all have four letters. Home. Love. Food. Land. Peace. . .I know peace has five letters, but any damn fool knows it should have four.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Home, Should Have, Land

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• The English language on her tongue became a smoke-screen, without her eyes changing expression in the least.

  Pat Conroy

  Eye, Expression, Tongue

  Pat Conroy (2012). “Beach Music”, p.366, Random House

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• Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas.

  Peter Ackroyd

  Writing, Piano, Novelists

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• I love vocal music, but I've had a hard time understanding myself through the English language. So it just seemed to me that if I relied solely on creating a voice out of the music, then I might be able to reach something more profound.

  Arca

  Hard Times, Voice, Creating

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• What words say does not last. The words last. Because words are always the same, and what they say is never the same.

  Antonio Porchia

  Doe, Lasts, Language

  "Voices". Book by Antonio Porchia, 1943.

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• Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.

  William James

  Mean, Imperfect, Language

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• There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable. There is no way you can tell the child that if language had been a melody, he had mastered it and done well, but that since it was in fact a sense, he had botched it utterly.

  Annie Dillard

  Children, Long, Age

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.107, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

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• I think the most dangerous word in the English language is 'should.' 'I should have done this.' Or 'I should do that.' 'Should' implies responsibility. It connotes demand. Which is just not the case. Life ebbs and flows.

  Chris Pine

  Responsibility, Thinking, Should Have

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• I remember one English teacher in the eighth grade, Florence Schrack, whose husband also taught at the high school. I thought what she said made sense, and she parsed sentences on the blackboard and gave me, I'd like to think, some sense of English grammar and that there is a grammar, that those commas serve a purpose and that a sentence has a logic, that you can break it down. I've tried not to forget those lessons, and to treat the English language with respect as a kind of intricate tool.

  John Updike

  Teacher, Husband, School

  "Two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction". The Academy of Achievement interview, www.achievement.org. June 12, 2004.

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• I believe we are being dishonest with language minority groups if we tell them they can take full part in American life without learning the English language.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Believe, Groups, Minorities

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• I love the English language just like I love all American things. But I confess that I don't feel confident using complex sentences or big words, hence my famous minimally expressive style - all the "gees" and laconic answers to interviewers. Most of all, I have developed listening as an art form.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, Style, Listening

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• English, no longer an English language, now grows from many roots.

  Salman Rushdie

  Roots, Language, Grows

  The Times (London), July 3, 1982.

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• It was once argued that 'Starring Sylvester Stallone' were the three scariest words in the English language but until I saw Adam Sandler I'd always thought the three scariest words in the English language were 'starring Dan Aykroyd.'

  Joe Queenan

  Saws, Three, Language

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• James Joyce's English was based on the rhythm of the Irish language. He wrote things that shocked English language speakers but he was thinking in Gaelic. I've sung songs that if they were in English, would have been banned too. The psyche of the Irish language is completely different to the English-speaking world.

  Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh

  Song, Thinking, Different

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• Soundbite and slogan, strapline and headline, at every turn we meet hyperbole. The soaring inflation of the English language is more urgently in need of control than the economic variety.

  Trevor Nunn

  Needs, Language, Economic

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• I got a bit obsessed with the whole English language and was writing journals and poetry. I've always been intrigued about psychology and philosophy and how people's minds work.

  Lara Pulver

  Philosophy, Writing, People

  Source: collider.com

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• "Equestrian", by the by, is the gayest word in the English language. In fact, I thought Brokeback Mountain should have been called Two Equestrians.

  Lewis Black

  Should Have, Two, Brokeback Mountain

  "Lewis Black: Red, White and Screwed". Documentary, Comedy, www.imdb.com. June 10, 2006.

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• The three most dreaded words in the English language are 'negative cash flow'.

  David Tang

  Cash Flow, Negative, Three

  "Kate Reporting" by Lauren Milligan, www.vogue.co.uk. June 16, 2011.

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• "Very" is the most useless word in the English language and can always come out. More than useless, it is treacherous because it invariably weakens what it is intended to strengthen. For example, would you rather hear the mincing shallowness of "I love you very much" or the heart-slamming intensity of "I love you"?

  Florence King

  Love You, Writing, Heart

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• Psychobabble attempts to redefine the entire English language just to make a correct statement incorrect. Psychology is the study of why someone would try to do this.

  Criss Jami

  Psychology, Trying, Language

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.94, Criss Jami

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• I used to hate England because they ruled my country but I am happy they gave us the game of cricket, which they can't play very well, and the English language, which I can't speak very well.

  Kapil Dev

  Country, Hate, Games

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