Language has no independent existence apart from the people who use it. It is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end of understanding who you are and what society is like.

Language changes and moves in a different direction evolving all the time. Where a lot of people see deterioration, I see expressive development

Language itself changes slowly but the internet has speeded up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly.

Research shows that those kids who text frequently are more likely to be the most literate and the best spellers, because you have to know how to manipulate language.

At any one time language is a kaleidoscope of styles, genres and dialects.

Grammar is what gives sense to language .... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.

Although many texters enjoy breaking linguistic rules, they also know they need to be understood.

A feature of English that makes it different compared with all other languages is its global spread.

In effect we are, bending and breaking the rules of the language. And if someone were to ask why we do it, the answer is simply: for fun

Spellings are made by people. Dictionaries - eventually - reflect popular choices.

Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.

Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.

It is one of the prodigious privileges of art that the horrific, artistically expressed, becomes beauty, and that sorrow, given rhythm and cadence, fills the spirit with a calm joy.

I want to really take chances. I want to be funny in a lot of different ways. I'd like to be great. I want to reach for greatness.

"Snapped" happened maybe like two months after I released the mixtape. I just like took a break from recording and that was the first song I wrote and recorded after the mixtape.

In public, Barack Obama's giving the simple version of his beliefs for the mass public. In private, he can discuss it at a really high level.

The only thing you can trust in this world is money and your source of food.

When little old ladies recognize a guy who was Mr. Olympia, that's saying something. That means I've been able to cross lines as far as marketability is concerned.

It's actually easier to truly become a person of good character than to persuade others we are what we are not.

I feel relieved that we discovered that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons.

Great things do not just happen by impulse, but as a succession of small things linked together.