Language is a living thing. It must survive in men's minds and on their tongues if it survives at all.

Grammar is not a set of rules; it is something inherent in the language, and language cannot exist without it. It can be discovered, but not invented.

If language is intimately related to being human, then when we study language we are, to a remarkable degree, studying human nature.

The truth seems to be that they [teachers of grammar] were victims of a mighty hoax, one of those true belly-rumbling impostures which a workaday world can but seldom afford.

Amoebas, once they have themselves well pulled in two, go their ways-they practice divorce, but no remarriage.

Jazz was formerly a crude term for indulging in an action which in polite society is referred to, if at all, only with such vague Latin terms as intercourse and cohabitation.

Babies and language are the essential ingredients of civilization, and speakers of language no more know where it came from than babies know where they come from.

You and I who read and write books have very little effect upon language. We may think about it, write about it, and read about it, but it goes on without us, or in spite of us.

Man can be defined, if one wishes, as a languag-ized mammal.

Quite naturally, scholars assumed that Latin grammar was not merely Latin grammar, but that it was grammar itself. They borrowed it and made the most of it.

Civilization could not exist until there was written language, because without written language no generation could bequeath to succeeding generations anything but its simpler findings.

Forgiveness doesn’t excuse their behaviour. It prevents their behaviour from destroying your heart.

It was as if the news itself wanted to reassure me. Even Jack the Ripper himself had reappeared as part of the greeting committee.

A secret life taught me: it doesn't get easier, you become stronger.

Why does Louis CK get named Comedy Person of the Year? I should be named Comedy Person of the Year just so I can parlay it into another few weeks of road work.

Honesty is a selfish virtue. Yes I am honest enough.

Love is said to be blind, but I know some fellows in love who can see twice as much in their sweethearts as I do.

And I've always worked on the principle that if it interests me enough to write about it, then it must interest a lot of other people.

I think it's important that people stand up for what they believe in. It's important that people discuss things.

The attempt is to kill the false "I", so that the real "I", the Lord, will reign. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me," say the Hebrew scriptures.

I don't think in terms of failure....I don't feel like anyone outside of me should be setting limitations. People should be encouraged to shoot for the moon.