Language Play Quotes

“Joke exchanges are carried on in deadly earnest, like a verbal duel-mouth-to-mouth combat. Bang, bang: you’re (linguistically) dead.”
― David Crystal, Language Play

“And a beautiful garden, not far from a beautiful lake, and I said it sounded perfectly perfect.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“Pam replied that she was too old to worry about being cool, but in fact she did worry about it, and that’s one reason it was always nice to see Bobby, who was so uncool as to inhabit—in Pam’s mind—his own private condominium of coolness.”
― Elizabeth Strout, The Burgess Boys

“Wolf hated the female tailless. He'd hated her from the first moment he'd smelt her, as she pointed the long claw that flies at his pack brother. What a thing to do! As if Tall Tail-less was some kind of prey!...Didn't she know that he was the lead wolf? She was so sharp and disrespectful when she yipped at him in tail-less talk. Why didn't Tall Tail-less just snarl and chase her away?”
― Michelle Paver, Wolf Brother

“Language is a door. Words en-trance and are an entrance; they draw you in. When you read, the book you cradle disappears and the tales within unfold in your mind. Writing is a shelter of words and reading an interior adventure.”
― Laurie Seidler, 22 Shelters: Lessons From Letters

“Adiós. A Dios. To God. From God. De Dios. Dedos. My fingers waving. Good-bye.”
― Chris Campanioni, Going Down

“Language has infinite power and as long as there’s Romeo and Juliet or Laila and Majnu or You and Me, as long as there’s love in the world, language will find a way to cast its spell.”
― Mallika Nawal