Arika Okrent Quotes

All this fighting stems from the illusion that people choose to learn a language for rational reasons, that they are looking for the language that has the most useful features, the best agenda. But no one is out there comparison shopping for an artificial language. They find what they like, and there's no accounting for taste.

Arika Okrent

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Quotes to Explore

• So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.

  

  Vikram Seth
  • English
  • Language
  • Novels

• When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious illness, your choices are basically to be passive and kind of accept whatever is offered you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your options, and be an active partner with your doctor. That's the course I took with all three of my cancers.

  

  Hamilton Jordan
  • Serious
  • Choices
  • Learn

• With 'True Grit,' the language was very specific, as is Shakespeare. You couldn't really improvise, nor would you really ever have to. I never felt the need to. It was all so beautifully written, and it was all right there.

  

  Hailee Steinfeld
  • True
  • Language
  • Grit

• As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.

  

  Yo-Yo Ma
  • Life
  • Music
  • Different

• I thought I knew everything when I came to Rome, but I soon found I had everything to learn.

  

  Edmonia Lewis
  • Thought
  • Learn
  • Rome

• If you learn the craft, you can make a movie and get by with tricks.

  

  D. B. Sweeney
  • Movie
  • You
  • Learn

• You don't just become number one because you sing like everybody else. There is something different you bring to the table. Make sure you are constantly getting into the newest technologies. Learn the history of what you do, and always respect the ones who came before you.

  

  Yolanda Adams
  • Different
  • History
  • Respect

• Few words in any language carry such a load of meaning as 'honor.' It is an old word, unchanged even in its spelling from classical Latin to modern English. Spoken or written, it does not seem to require much explanation; most people think they know what it means.

  

  Edmund Morgan
  • People
  • Words
  • English

• It took me years to learn that sentences in fiction must do much more than stand around and look pretty.

  

  Karen Thompson Walker
  • Pretty
  • Me
  • Learn

• If you and I had a relationship, and I like to dance and you don't, will that affect our relationship? If I push you and push you, maybe you'll learn to dance, but more likely, that will move you away from me.

  

  Randa Haines
  • Relationship
  • Dance
  • Learn

• Men have to descend from their pedestal and learn how to be more broadminded and spiritual.

  

  Indra Devi
  • Men
  • Spiritual
  • Learn

• It seems Palestinians can't win. The language of peace negotiations has always been predicated on a representation that Palestinians are violent and that is why Israel behaves as it does.

  

  Randa Abdel-Fattah
  • Why
  • Peace
  • Language

• I used to be really insecure about my self-education. I'm definitely always learning. But there's many ways to learn. There are many, many ways to always be a learner.

  

  Maggie Grace
  • Education
  • Learning
  • Always

• A stylist understands our body language; they know what works and what doesn't. I'm happy this concept has caught on in the South film industry.

  

  Rakul Preet Singh
  • Happy
  • Language
  • Body

• To achieve the very pinnacle of good taste, the neoclassicists wrote their plays entirely in alexandrine verse, a rarefied meter that is uniquely tailored to the French language and fits no other.

  

  Florence King
  • Good
  • Language
  • Achieve

• Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience.

  

  Dale Carnegie
  • Best
  • Purpose
  • Picture

• Coffee is a language in itself.

  

  Jackie Chan
  • Language
  • Coffee
  • Itself

• The real being of language is that into which we are taken up when we hear it - what is said.

  

  Hans-Georg Gadamer
  • Up
  • Real
  • Taken

• I come from not just a household but a country where the finesse of language, well-balanced sentence, structure, syntax, these things are driven into us, and my parents, bless them, are great custodians of the English language.

  

  Daniel Day-Lewis
  • Great
  • Country
  • Parents

• DNA is a code of four letters; proteins are made up of amino acids which come in 20 forms. So the ribosome is a very clever machine that reads one language and operates in another.

  

  Ada Yonath
  • Up
  • Language
  • Clever

• It was unwise to plan too carefully. It took only one great failure to learn that lesson.

  

  Belva Plain
  • Failure
  • Learn
  • Plan

• When I'm training a dog, I develop a relationship with that dog. He's my buddy, and I want to make training fun.

  

  Ian Dunbar
  • Fun
  • Relationship
  • Training

• I have a very personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It doesn't depend on the fact that he can walk on water.

  

  Jimmy Carter
  • Relationship
  • Water
  • Walk

• All this fighting stems from the illusion that people choose to learn a language for rational reasons, that they are looking for the language that has the most useful features, the best agenda. But no one is out there comparison shopping for an artificial language. They find what they like, and there's no accounting for taste.

  

  Arika Okrent
  • Language
  • Learn
  • Useful