“When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it because its stews taste exactly like your old mother's hash, or to reject it because the owl-headed goddess of wisdom in its temple is fatter than the Statue of Liberty, is an equal mark of that want of imagination, that inaccessibility to experience, of which each of us who dies a natural death will die.” WantKindCountryLawMotherDiesLanguageImaginationNaturalLibertyAcceptingLike YouTasteEqualMarkTemplesRejectsGoddessEnteringStatuesTranslationsOwlForeign CountriesStewStatue Of LibertyNatural DeathHash Author:Randall Jarrell
“When you work as a day player on a film or a TV thing, like you're visiting a foreign country, where you know a couple of words of the language and a few of the cultural abnormalities, but basically you're a stranger in a strange land.” KnowsCountryFilmLanguagePlayerLandStrangeTvsLike YouCoupleStrangerVisitingForeign CountriesAbnormalityStranger In A Strange Land Author:Anthony Heald
“A lot of politics plays at the level of myth, and if you understand that, then you feel like you have access to the secret language of politics.” IfsFeelsPlayLanguageLevelsSecretLike YouMythAccess Author:Zephyr Teachout
“When the Irish nun said to me, "Speak your name loud and clear so that all the boys and girls can hear you," she was asking me to use language publicly, with strangers. That's the appropriate instruction for a teacher to give. If she were to say to me, "We are going to speak now in Spanish, just like you do at home. You can whisper anything you want to me, and I am going to call you by a nickname, just like your mother does," that would be inappropriate. Intimacy is not what classrooms are about.” IfsWantGivingDoeSaidUseHomeWould BeMotherGirlNamesSpeakLanguageBoysClearTeacherLike YouAskingStrangerIntimacyLoudAppropriateInstructionClassroomNunInappropriateBoy And GirlNicknamesSpeak Now Author:Richard Rodriguez
“Go to countries where you don't speak the language. Eat food that looks like you may not like it. Read all of the holy books.” LooksMayBookCountrySpeakLanguageLike YouHolyHoly Books Author:Michael Skolnik
“People always say that music is a universal language. It was very, very true. We could show up anywhere with any people speaking different languages and we could just be like, "You want to play that song? Yeah, okay." We would usually want to play Latin American songs, and they would usually want to play Santana or Jimi Hendrix and stuff like that. So we would trade off. So yeah, we were able to make a lot of friends that way and meet a lot of local musicians. It was a great experience.” PeopleDifferentSongLanguageLike YouMusicianMusic IsOkayTradeLatinLatin AmericaHendrixVery True Author:Jherek Bischoff