Words are but the signs of ideas.

I boldly assert, in fact I think I know, that a lot of friendships and connections absolutely depend upon a sort of shared language, or slang. Not necessarily designed to exclude others, this can establish a certain comity and, even after a long absence, re-establish it in a second.

If you can talk, you can write.

I do think that we’re gonna move towards this world where eventually you’ll be able to capture a whole experience that you’re in and be able to send that to someone.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

I speak a number of languages, but none are more beautiful to me than English.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

To me, constructive criticism is when people take ownership of their ideas. That’s why I don’t listen to anything that’s anonymous. But it’s hard; when there’s something hurtful out there, I still want to read it over and over and memorize it and explain my point of view to the person.

I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.

I realized why directors are such horrible people – in a way – because you want things to be right, and people will just not listen to you, and there is no time to be nice to people, no time to be delicate.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

I like it when someone tells me ‚I don’t agree.‘ This is a true collaborator. When they say ‚Oh, how great, how great, how great,‘ that’s not useful.

Obscenity comes from grime.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

If I’m in a political argument, I think I can, with reasonable accuracy and without boasting, put the other person’s side of the case at least as well as they could. One has to be able to say that in any well-conducted argument.

All men hate the nagging.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

The difficulty with this conversation is that it’s very different from most of the ones I’ve had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

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.

Speak low, if you speak love.

You can think of the entire Internet as a place where ideas embodied in cyberspace are having a war, and it’s not much different than the war of gods in heaven, which has been taking place since there’s been human beings.

It’s not a slam at you when people are rude, it’s a slam at the people they’ve met before.

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another – until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

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.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to.

‚No comment‘ is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

Journalism largely consists of saying ‚Lord Jones is Dead‘ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.

Every now and then I will see a word as if for the first time, and suddenly appreciate that Evian is ‚naive‘ spelled backward, or that Bosnia is an anagram of ‚bonsai.‘

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

Dance music is no longer a simple Donna Summer beat. It’s become a whole language that I find fascinating and exciting. Eventually, it will lose the dance tag and join the fore of rock.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

It’s a rather rude gesture, but at least it’s clear what you mean.

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God’s language – it’s better, it’s finer, it’s language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.

I make a lot of expressions constantly. I’m animated.

As Bromberger observed, rules are understood to be elements of the computational systems that determine the sound and meaning of the infinite array of expressions of a language; the information so derived is accessed by other systems in language use.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

Everybody, to some extent, manipulates. Even children learn to cry when they want something. There are all kinds of subtle things we do to get others to follow our lead, not bother us, and so on.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.