Language is wine upon the lips.

I was terrible in English. I couldn’t stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention – it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature.

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, ‚Truth is the daughter of Time.‘

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.

All men are equal before fish.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

When I was a college student and I got interested in linguistics the concern among students was, this is a lot of fun, but after we have done a structural analysis of every language in the world what’s left? It was assumed there were basically no puzzles.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.

We have language and they do not. Chimps communicate by embracing, patting, looking – all these things. And they have lots of sounds. But they cannot sit and discuss. They cannot teach about things that are not present, as far as we know.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

If a child from an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe comes to Boston, is raised in Boston, that child will be indistinguishable in language capacities from my children growing up here, and vice versa.

The pace at which people are taking to digital technology defies our stereotypes of age, education, language and income.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

I try to speak in a way that people can understand.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

If we weren’t all crazy, we’d just go insane.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

I am not going to be a mouthpiece for language that I detest.

The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired.

I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

I grew up cursing a lot.

A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

Every day I go to my study and sit at my desk and put the computer on. At that moment, I have to open the door. It’s a big, heavy door. You have to go into the Other Room. Metaphorically, of course. And you have to come back to this side of the room. And you have to shut the door.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Though she be but little, she is fierce.

The way I talk is bizarre.

But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

Substitute ‚damn‘ every time you’re inclined to write ‚very‘; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

Water is the driving force of all nature.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the first law of nature.

I’ve studied authoritarianism for a very long time – for 40 years – and they’re started by people’s attempts to control the ideological and linguistic territory.

Every December, I host a tree-trimming party. I serve chili with cornbread and lots of good wine. It’s a wonderful party, and it shows how much adults like to play.

I read the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

If life gives you limes, make margaritas.