Christopher Hitchens Quotes About Language
-
I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language - always the language - was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.
→ -
The Iranian people were converted to Islam not very much longer after the conquest of the Arab world by Islam, but they refused to adopt the Arabic language, and it's a great point of pride to them that Persian culture and the Persian language and Persian literature survived the conversion to Islam. And the conversion to Islam also was for most of them not the Sunni majority form, but the Shia one. So there's a great discrepancy between Iranian society and many other of what we think of as Arab Muslim States and systems.
→ -
You know, you can make a small mistake in language or etiquette in Britain, or you could when I was younger, and really be made to feel it, and it's the flick of a lash, but it would sting, and especially at school where there's not much privacy, and so on. You could, yes, undoubtedly be made to feel crushed.
→ -
Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers). How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around). What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words.
→ -
Flaubert was right when he said that our use of language is like a cracked kettle on which we bang out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we need to move the very stars to pity.
→
Related Authors
-
Stephen Fry Comedian -
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Activist -
Peter Hitchens Journalist -
Salman Rushdie Novelist -
William Lane Craig Philosopher -
Richard Dawkins Ethologist -
Mother Teresa Saint -
George Orwell Novelist -
Sam Harris Author -
Henry A. Kissinger Former National Security Advisor -
Noam Chomsky Linguist -
John Lennox Mathematician -
Bertrand Russell Philosopher -
Martin Amis Novelist -
Daniel Dennett Philosopher -
Neil deGrasse Tyson Astrophysicist -
Dinesh D'Souza Author -
Lawrence M. Krauss Physicist -
William F. Buckley, Jr. Author -
Gore Vidal Writer