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.

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.

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

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

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.

Women like me. Women love me, so if I really wanted to involve the women, I don't have to assault the women.

I think above all, what we need with Iran is patience.

The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

If you haven't forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?

A man I knew who lived upon a smile, And well it fed him; he look'd plump and fair, While rankest venom foam'd through every vein.

With a camera, one has to love individual cases.

No, in country money, the country scale of gain, The requisite lift of spirit has never been found.

Inerrancy matters because it honors the Spirit, who wants to honor the Son, who wants to honor the Father.

My mom's never been married. I've never even seen my mom kiss a dude.