Language Snobs Quotes & Sayings

Is language actually getting better, shorter, and easier? Nowadays we often hear exactly the opposite. Teenager slang is awful, students no longer learn Latin, our children - not to mention our president - cannot put together a grammatical sentence. The whimsical poet Ogden Nash was at least half serious in his "Laments for a dying language":

Coin brassy words at will, debase the coinage;
We're in an if-you-cannot-lick-them-join age,
A slovenliness-provides-its-own-excuse age,
Where usage overnight condones misusage.
Farewell, farewell to my beloved language,
Once English, now a vile orangutanguage. — Charles Yang

The hotel was guest-friendly with hourly rates and had enough room to swing a cat, if it were a small cat and you wanted to swing it. — James A. Newman

So much more than thank you," I whisper in her ear.
"So much more," she whispers back. — Kim Holden

Greed makes one want to get something he/she has not worked for — Sunday Adelaja

He's not going to shoot us in the back by accident, is he?" Deputy Coltrain asked. I smiled, not sweetly. "He promised not to. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Rock and roll is a contact sport. I enjoy playing the tunes that really get the people going. — Richie Sambora

The girls chirped and chatted like uncaged warblers. They were delirious with joy ... Intoxications of life's morning! Enchanted years! The wing of a dragonfly trembles! Oh, reader, whoever you may be, do you have such memories? Have you walked in the underbrush, pushing aside branches for the charming head behind you? Have you slid laughing, down some slope wet with rain, with the woman you loved? — Victor Hugo

In America, religious dissent is as vital as it is elusive. Like the secretions of the pituitary, the juices of dissent are essential to ongoing life even if we do not always know precisely how, when or where they perform their tasks, and the not knowing - the flimsy, filmy elusiveness - is supremely characteristic of America's expressions of religious dissent. For in the United States no stalwart orthodoxy stands ever ready to parry the sharp thrust or clever feints of dissent. — Edwin Gaustad

Are you a Christian? she said.

I answered:
I am a Christian, I am a Jew, I am a Catholic, I am Muslim.

I am each and everyone of you my child, look into the mirror and you will see me,
as i see you.. — Faruk H.T.

There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story ... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words
the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book. — Stephen King

A man you like, you mean, Tabitha?" my grandmother asked. "I wouldn't mention him if I didn't like him," my mother said. "I want you to meet him," she said to us all. "You've dated him?" my grandmother asked. "No! I just met him - just today, on today's train!" my mother said. "And already you like him?" Lydia asked, in a tone of voice so perfectly copied from my grandmother that I had to look to see which one of them was speaking. "Well, yes," my mother said seriously. "You know such things. You don't need that much time. — John Irving

Well, I don't know if I can comment on Kant or Hegel because I'm no real philosopher in the sense of knowing what these people have said in any detail so let me not comment on that too much. — Roger Penrose

We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily - as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable. — Maya Angelou

Who am I? It matters not that you know who I am; it is of little importance. This clay garment is one of a penniless pilgrim journeying in the name of peace. It is what you cannot see that is so very important. I am one who is propelled by the power of faith; I bathe in the light of eternal wisdom; I am sustained by the unending energy of the universe; this is who I really am. — Peace Pilgrim

Ever two seconds, somewhere in the world, a child dies of starvation. That means every two seconds there is a story where the main character dies. That's a lot of horrible stories. So if my death looks like a sad story to someone else, I hope those people will use their imagination to think of all the children who don't get special deaths. — Mohiro Kitoh