Quotes on Languages

Other dances are like languages, like French or Spanish, but my steps are slang, and slang is always changing.

There are two languages that I love: Farsi and Panjabi. Because the depth of Sufi thought in these two languages cannot be found in any other language.

I'm about as monolingual as you come, but nevertheless, I have a variety of different languages at my command, different styles, different ways of talking, which do involve different parameter settings.

Clearly, the qualities Poles admire in a secretary of state - foreign languages, diplomatic experience, even sense of humor - are emphatically not those desired in a head of state: So be it.

There are Jews who came from 102 countries and speak 81 languages - how do you consolidate them into one nation? This is where I saw my role.

Conservatism is rooted in preservation; progressivism advances alteration. These are different love languages. These languages turn on your view of change itself: When you think of America, do you see a country struggling to be maintained or one striving to be made better?

It helps me to learn things in different languages, even if it's just phonetically, and to make myself vulnerable to other audiences by trying to reflect back to them the genius of their own cultures, and to do that, oftentimes, in new jazz settings, new arrangements. It's a way to show respect.

There's an ancient connection between movement and music. Most languages don't make a distinction between the words 'music' and 'dance.' And we can see that in the brain. When people are lying perfectly still but listening to music, the neurons in the motor cortex are firing.

People who grow up with two or more languages understand that each can express certain aspects of reality better than the other.

Spain is a fascinating mix of people, languages, culture and food, but if there is one thing all Spaniards share, it's a love of food and drink.

When you have those two languages - an analytic one like English and a synthetic, very sensual thing like Russian, you get almost a psychotic sense of humanity that permeates nearly everything. It can help you understand, and it can discourage you, because you see how little can be done.

Languages evolve; ideas blend together. In computer technology, we all stand on others' shoulders.

When I was young we weren't even allowed to speak our own languages in school. They called it 'vernacular,' as if only English was the real tongue.

Languages and cultures are disappearing at an enormously fast rate, and many of them are in Canada. These are extreme examples of removal of freedom of expression - to actually lose a language and the ability to express that culture.

When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end.

National languages are all huge systems of vested interests which sullenly resist critical inquiry.

Sometimes I am a different character in different languages. I have different enjoyment from them. Sometimes different answers come out of me. Like, I didn't even know that about me. I get to know myself through different languages, actually.

Poetry seems to be the only weapon able to beat language, using language's own means.

It's haunting to realize that half of the languages of the world are teetering on the brink of extinction.

There should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin color, or religion.