First Language Quotes

The first language that I learned was Italian in Italy in the early and middle-'60s and I had to do that to keep up with the young men who were courting my wife. ~ Clive James

The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people's hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely.

During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one's face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one's lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because th ~ Nicole Krauss

She isn't a storm or a leader or a king or a war or anyone whose life and death makes noise. The problem is words. There is skin, yes. And then, inside that, there is your language, the casual, inherited magic spells taht make your skin real. It's too late now
even if we could say "Shut up" or "Where's my dinner?" in the first language, the real language, the words weren't born in us. And unless your skin and your language touch each other without interruption, there is no word strong enough to make you understand that it matters that you live. The things that really "stay" are an Orisha, a kind night, a pretended boy, a garden song that made no sense. Those come closer to being enough. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

My first language is French. I just love words so much, and in French it feels like I can say whatever I want however I want. ~ Xavier Dolan

Afrikaans is my first language, although you would never know, as my English accent has more of an American-British thing going on from all my years of travelling. ~ Tanit Phoenix

This is the first language of your body. It is the word ne. When you bleed each month, as when the moon comes and goes in its journey, you leave the world of men. You enter the body of all women, who are connected to all of nature. ~ Lidia Yuknavitch

Our parents taught us to love God, love our family and love our country. Their own grandparents were immigrants. Their first language may not have been English, but the hopes and dreams they had for their children were purely American. ~ Martin O'Malley

My first language, the true language of the soul spoken only on our planet of origin, had no word for betrayal or traitor. Or even loyalty- because without the opposite, the concept had no meaning. ~ Stephenie Meyer

Guys get a bad rap for not wanting to talk about their feelings but maybe women are in part to blame for that. One thing that I learned from working with people where English was not their first language was this: just because they don't speak your language doesn't mean that they're dumb. Maybe we just need to talk more slowly, use simpler words and have lots more patience. ~ Dermot Davis

I said "it is my first language, my mother tongue, my family, my people, my home; it is my heart, my heart, my heart." No one says any of these things. But they should. ~ Joanna Brooks

You'll hear people say it's racist to test. Folks, it's racist not to test. Because guess who gets shuffled through the system oftentimes? Children whose parents don't speak English as a first language, inner-city kids. It's so much easier to quit on somebody than to remediate. ~ George W. Bush

Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth. ~ Margaret Atwood

Consider the term Mother Tongue. In Russian the term is Rodnoi-yazyk, which means Nearest or Dearest Tongue. At a pinch one could call it Darling Tongue.
Mother Tongue is our first language, first heard as infants from the mouths of our mothers. Hence the logic of the term.
I mention it now because the creature of language, which i'm trying to describe, is undoubtedly feminine. I imagine its centre as a phonetic uterus.
Within one Mother Tongue are all Mother Tongues. Or, to put it another way: every Mother Tongue is universal. ~ John Berger

I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with. ~ Salma Hayek

The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was the novelist Joseph Conrad's third language, and much of that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench.

In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand.

All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens not to be standard English, and if it shows itself when you write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue.

I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to w ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Man's first language, the most universal, the most energetic and the only language he needed before it was necessary to persuade men assembled together, is the cry of nature. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I've come to think that there's an age beyond which it is impossible to lift a child from the pervading marinade of an original country, pat them down with a paper napkin and then deep-fry them in another country, another language like hot oil scalding the first language away. ~ Helen Oyeyemi

Because it's my first language, all the literature that I've read and all the things that I've been inspired by that have been written in Welsh have moved me beyond anything that I've experienced in any other language. ~ Gwenno

I haven't yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things: I expect I will always have to do it that way; regrettably I don't think my first language can be written down at all. ~ Claire-Louise Bennett

After his sisters were taken away, the Japanese occupying force sent my grandfather to Imperial Schools. My first language is Japanese, he tells me. English far away. Sometimes, right after he told me, I would look at him and wonder what it felt like, to have the print of your enemy all the way inside you, right into the way you shaped your thoughts. ~ Alexander Chee

English, strictly speaking, is not my first language by the way. I haven't yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things. I expect I will always have to do it that way; regrettably I don't think my first language can be written down at all. I'm not sure it can be made external you see. I think it has to stay where it is; simmering in the elastic gloom betwixt my flickering organs. ~ Claire-Louise Bennett

I grew up in France, my first language was French, and I tend to gravitate towards French cooking. ~ Robert Stack

Today 350 million people speak English as their first language and around 450 million have it as a second language. That is roughly one in every seven people on the planet. ~ Niall Ferguson

Not all babies learn to play chess or hunt penguins or play the didgeridoo, but except in cases of pathology they all master their first language. Indeed, failure to master one's first language is taken to reflect a pathological condition; failing to master algebra or the piccolo has no such implication. ~ Neilson Voyne Smith

He smiles, but it's not a smile I've ever seen before. It's a dangerous smile; he's a movie villain, the seductive one, the one who robs you but fucks you real good first. ~ Christina Lauren

No new reader, however charitable, could open "Fifty Shades of Grey," browse a few paragraphs, and reasonably conclude that the author was writing in her first language, or even her fourth. ~ Anthony Lane

Gratitude is the heart's first language. ~ Joey Garcia

I fantasized about having a mother who was also raised on Sesame Street, Happy Meals, and John Hughes movies. Maybe she could ask me white mom questions like "How are you feeling?" or say white mom things like "I love you to the moon and back." We would share the same first language. She could help me pick out a dress that I actually liked, instead of the dress that was most discounted. We would understand each other and not fight as much. ~ Ali Wong

Many people are intimidated by doctors ... People also feel stupid when they don't understand what a doctor's talking about the first time around, so they don't ask again. And let's be honest here, people. English is not a doctor's first language. ~ Erma Bombeck

I would like to spend more time with Spanish poetry. I know French better than Spanish, but Spanish was my first language, and my father spoke it to us. ~ Helen Vendler

Drawing is the first language of the human being before writing. It's a transcription of how the human being sees reality, not reality itself. ~ Marjane Satrapi

My first language is Gaelic. ~ Enya

My first audition happened to be for 'Kindergarten Cop,' and I took that role. I was only starting to learn English at that point. Spanish is my first language, so they made me a speaking character in the movie. I didn't really know I was shooting a movie. I was just having a lot of fun with 30 kids my own age. ~ Odette Annable

I speak Swedish, it's my first language. Of course, growing up with Latin American parents from Argentina, I also have some other influences from other cultures. But Sweden is where I feel the most at home. ~ Jose Gonzalez

Even though many Indians can read or speak English, for most, it is not their first language. At the office, we speak in English, but we consume our culture in our own language. ~ Amish Tripathi

You realize that by summoning me here, you signed your own death warrant." Demons were nothing to take lightly. I'd seen what they were capable of, but I also knew they were no match against the light that shone inside me. "I do," it said, and I fought to place the language we were speaking. I knew it was ancient. Possibly the first language ever spoken in the universe. "Unless we sign yours first." "Is that what you think will happen here?" "Dutch," Reyes said into my ear, "stop playing with your dinner. ~ Darynda Jones

Become friends with people who aren't your age. Hang out with people whose first language isn't the same as yours. Get to know someone who doesn't come from your social class. This is how you see the world. This is how you grow... ~ Roumaissa

In truth, she had claim to no nationality. Her papers were all forgeries, and her accents -all except one, in her first language, which was not of human origin- were all fakes. ~ Laini Taylor

I am not african.
Africa is in me, but I cannot return.
I am not taina.
Taino is in me, but there is no way back.
I am european.
Europe lives in me, but I have no home there.

I am new. History made me. My first language is Spanglish.
I was born at the crossroads
and I am whole. ~ Aurora Levins Morales

I have been so careless with the words I already have.

I don't remember how to say home
in my first language, or lonely, or light.

I remember only
delam barat tang shodeh, I miss you,

and shab bekheir, goodnight.

How is school going, Kaveh-joon?
Delam barat tang shodeh.

Are you still drinking?
Shab bekheir.

For so long every step I've taken
has been from one tongue to another. ~ Kaveh Akbar

My dad is a minister, and my mum is a worker with the less fortunate and the disabled. They're Nigerian natives. Their first language is Yoruba, and their second language is English. ~ John Boyega

My first language is both English and Spanish. My mom was raised in Los Angeles, so with her we spoke English, but my father was born in Cuba, so with him we spoke Spanish. ~ Jencarlos Canela

Somebody said to me that I speak English almost like somebody for whom English is not their first language. ~ Christopher Walken

some linguists have also concluded that, while the innatist perspective provides a plausible explanation for first language acquisition, something else is required for second language acquisition, since it so often falls short of full success. From the cognitive psychology perspective, however, first and second language acquisition are seen as drawing on the same processes of perception, memory, categorization, and generalization. The difference lies in the circumstances of learning as well as in what the learners already know about language and how that prior knowledge shapes their perception of the new language. ~ Patsy M. Lightbown

The rhythm of breath may have been our first language. ~ Daryl Gregory

it is not the first language that is all-important, but which language captures the adolescent's imagination when he or she first discovers literature. ~ Ned Thomas

If a person calls themself 'autistic' and you tell them they have to use 'person first language' ... you're not putting the person first. ~ Stuart Duncan

My first language was shy. It's only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness. ~ Al Pacino

Touch is the first language we speak. ~ Stephen Gaskin

Lyrics are important, but it's hard, because English isn't my first language - although it feels like it is these days! I grew up with amazing melodies, so getting that right on a song has always been the key thing for me, but there's no reason why a great melody doesn't deserve great lyrics. ~ Avicii

I have dreamed of that song, of the strange words to that simple rhyme-song, and on several occasions I have understood what she was saying, in my dreams. In those dreams I spoke that language too, the first language, and I had dominion over the nature of all that was real. In my dream, it was the tongue of what is, and anything spoken in it becomes real, because nothing said in that language can be a lie. It is the most basic building brick of everything. In my dreams I have used that language to heal the sick and to fly; once I dreamed I kept a perfect little bed-and-breakfast by the seaside, and to everyone who came to stay with me I would say, in that tongue, "Be whole," and they would become whole, not be broken people, not any longer, because I had spoken the language of shaping. And, ~ Neil Gaiman

Do you want to demonstrate that the living also have a wordless language, with which books cannot be written but which can only be lived, second by second, which cannot be recorded or remembered? First comes this wordless language of living bodies ... then the words books are written with, and attempts to translate that first language are vain ... ~ Italo Calvino

Romantic obsession is my first language. I live in a world of fantasies, infatuations and love poems. Sometimes I wonder if the yearning I've felt for others was more of a yearning for yearning itself. I've pined insatiably and repeatedly: for strangers, new lovers, unrequited flames. While the subjects changed, that feeling always remained. Perhaps, then, I have not been so infatuated with the people themselves, but with the act of longing.

from "Life without Longing," The New York Times (9 February 2019) ~ Melissa Broder

I'm trying to talk to my kids in Japanese, because I'm not a pro English speaker. My wife speaks to them in English. That's her first language. I don't want my kids to feel the same as me when I was studying English. It was so frustrating. ~ Miyavi

They became sophisticated in a way that she wasn't-in a way she'd never be because sophistication is either your first language or you always have an accent in it. ~ Taffy Brodesser-Akner

I know Spanish pretty well. I'm half-Puerto Rican - my mom is from Puerto Rico - so I have a lot of family there, and my mom's first language is Spanish. But growing up in the States, and with my dad being from the States, I'm kind of just like this white kid. ~ David Lambert

But one may acquire what MacIntyre calls a "second first language," a language which is learned in the same way that a child learns to use the native tongue. A missionary or an anthropologist who really hopes to understand and enter into the adopted culture will not do so by trying to learn the language in the way a tourist uses a phrasebook and a dictionary. ~ Lesslie Newbigin

She was probably male, to judge from the angular mazelike patterns quilting her shirt. I wasn't entirely certain. It wouldn't have mattered, if I had been in Radch space. Radchaai don't care much about gender, and the language they speak - my own first language - doesn't mark gender in any way. ~ Ann Leckie

It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place. ~ Andrew Carnegie

The first couple of times she had come here, she had been sure that he changed overnight, that the shards of physiognomy that made up his whole reorganized when no one was looking. She became frightened of her commission. She wondered hysterically if it was like a task in a moral children's tale, if she was to be punished for some nebulous sin by striving to freeze in time a body in flux, forever too afraid to say anything, starting each day from the beginning all over again. ~ China Mieville

Jean Louise, when a man's looking down the double barrel of a shotgun, he picks up the first weapon he can find to defend himself, be it a stone or a stick of stovewood or a citizens' council." "That ~ Harper Lee

As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore. Or if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find That solace? ~ John Milton

By Bruce Dawe

One day soon he'll tell her it's time to start packing
and the kids will yell 'Truly?' and get wildly excited for no reason
and the brown kelpie pup will start dashing about, tripping everyone up
and she'll go out to the vegetable patch and pick all the green tomatoes from the vines
and notice how the oldest girl is close to tears because she was happy here,
and how the youngest girl is beaming because she wasn't.
And the first thing she'll put on the trailer will be the bottling-set she never unpacked from Grovedale,
and when the loaded ute bumps down the drive past the blackberry canes with their last shrivelled fruit,
she won't even ask why they're leaving this time, or where they're headed for
she'll only remember how, when they came here
she held out her hands, bright with berries,
the first of the season, and said:
'Make a wish, Tom, make a wish. ~ Bruce Dawe

You asked me who I belong to," he whispered. "I belong to you. Your blood is my blood, your bones my bones. The first time you saw me, I looked familiar, didn't I? Just like you looked familiar to me. ~ Cassandra Clare

A lover exists only in fragments, a dozen or so if the romance is new, a thousand if we're married to him, and out of those fragments our heart constructs an entire person. What we each create, since whatever is missing is filled by our imagination, is the person we wish him to be. The less we know him, of course, the more we love him. And that's why we always remember that first rapturous night when he was a stranger, and why this rapture returns only when he's dead. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

One does so hate to admit that the average woman is kinder, finer, more quick of sympathy and on the whole so much more first class than the average man. ~ Sherwood Anderson

First, you can develop resilience. Anyone can do it. No one can do it for you. You and you alone have to do the work. Second, you can develop resilience. It's possible to build virtues. It's possible to change your character. It's possible, therefore, to change the direction of your life. Third, you can develop resilience. Resilience cannot be purchased or given to you; you have to do the hard work of building excellence in your life. ~ Eric Greitens

I had to know at least two languages. ~ Novak Djokovic

POEM – MY AMAZING
TRAVELS
[My composition in my book Travel Memoirs with Pictures]


My very first trip I still cannot believe
Was planned and executed with such great ease.
My father, an Inspector of Schools, was such a strict man,
He gave in to my wishes when I told him of the plan.

I got my first long vacation while working as a banker
One of my co-workers wanted a travelling partner.
She visited my father and discussed the matter
Arrangements were made without any flutter.

We travelled to New York, Toronto, London, and Germany,
In each of those places, there was somebody,
To guide and protect us and to take us wonderful places,
It was a dream come true at our young ages.

We even visited Holland, which was across the Border.
To drive across from Germany was quite in order.
Memories of great times continue to linger,
I thank God for an understanding father.

That trip in 1968 was the beginning of much more,
I visited many countries afterward I am still in awe.
Barbados, Tobago, St. Maarten, and Buffalo,
Cirencester in the United Kingdom, Miami, and Orlando.

I was accompanied by my husband on many trips.
Sisters, nieces, children, grandchildren, and friends, travelled with me a bit.
Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, New York, and Hialeah,
Curacao, Caracas, Margarita, Virginia, and Anguilla.

We sailed ~ Brenda Mohammed

Poets are born knowing the language of angels. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I have always loved fantasy; I think probably stepping through the wardrobe with Lucy in C.S. Lewis's 'Narnia Chronicles' was my first exposure when I was really little. ~ Jacqueline Carey

I remember the first time I saw you."
His voice breaks into my tumbling thoughts.
"You had no idea I saw you. I remember thinking that's a woman I can see spending the rest of my life with. ~ Terri E. Laine

I have many names. But you may call me Lilith, first of all demons. ~ Cassandra Clare

The thing is," he [Fenrin] said softly, "we're all going to die...But the first time you realize it...how do you get over that?" ... "You don't, I think," I [River] said, finally. "You never get over it. The rest of your life is spent knowing it, over you shoulder."
"Are you okay with it?"
"No. But sometimes yes. And then no, again. Sometimes it's okay. Like now. We're drunk. We feel good. But tomorrow...life crowds in again. And then you find another way to block out the truth, just so you can get through the day. If we let ourselves see too much truth, it scares us. You have to block it out, or you'd never get anything done. You'd just wander around being perpetually depressed or amazed...That doesn't mean we shouldn't want to see the truth. It's just that maybe we have to see it in stages to be able to understand it. ~ Laure Eve

Take what fame or fortune comes your way. My first bestseller was a cookbook, so remember to be open to trying new things. From that experience I learned things about marketing a book that benefitted me greatly and, combined with my sales management experience with Fortune 500 companies, I was able to launch a string of bestsellers. ~ Dan Alatorre

First is Epsilon, which equals 0.007, which is the relative amount of hydrogen that converts to helium via fusion in the big bang. ~ Michio Kaku

My first book was the book that changed my life. ~ Stephen Ambrose

Twenty-one years ago, when I first heard Mia Farrow had accused me of child molestation, I found the idea so ludicrous I didn't give it a second thought. We were involved in a terribly acrimonious breakup, with great enmity between us and a custody battle slowly gathering energy. The self-serving transparency of her malevolence seemed so obvious I didn't even hire a lawyer to defend myself. It was my show business attorney who told me she was bringing the accusation to the police and I would need a criminal lawyer. ~ Woody Allen

No time for foreplay?" I teased breathlessly.
His smile was sly. "Oh, we've had nothing but foreplay from the day we first met. ~ Karina Halle

I was the kind of entrepreneur that never really felt I made it. When Mike Olefield's "Tubular Bells" [Virgin Records' first release] sold 8 or 10 million copies, I suppose, at age 19, I could've possibly retired on the money. Instead, I immediately pushed the boat and took that risk again. ~ Richard Branson

My first wife was a bear in the morning. I love me some passion, and I gotta have a woman who puts a little pepper in the gumbo, but I didn't make that morning mistake twice. ~ Mary Jane Hathaway

As an entrepreneur making decisions for your company, always go back to your first principles of what's important to you and why you started in the first place. ~ Matt Mullenweg

My first big job was an Abercrombie &Fitch campaign. But my mom wouldn't let me skip school for it, so I missed half of the shoot. When we got there, we realized Bruce Weber was the photographer; we knew we had made a mistake! ~ Lauren Bush

Probably the first time I left Italy was to travel by train to Lourdes. I went with my mother and my grandmother - who was a very religious person - so it was a pilgrimage of sorts. I remember it as a very intense, but beautiful experience. ~ Andrea Bocelli

Dr. Beall gave him the first shot, followed closely by the second.
He said, "I'll check for a heartbeat."
I said, "You don't need to. I can see it in his eyes."
Dewey was gone. ~ Vicki Myron

He spoke in english. Not flawlessly by any means. Not like a Nazi POW camp commandant who appreciates english poetry and says things like 'you know, we are much alike, you and I I'. But good enough ~ Alex Garland

I believe the second half of one's life is meant to be better than the first half. The first half is finding out how you do it. And the second half is enjoying it. ~ Frances Lear

Life presents itself first and foremost as a task. We take no pleasure in it except when we are striving after something. ~ Tim Parks

However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
The question, therefore, is not 'How can we make community?' but, 'How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?' ~ Henri Nouwen

When in doubt, use nutrition first. ~ Roger Williams

Her eyes were full of a hot liquid (she did not think of tears at first) which, without disturbing the firmness of her lips, made the air thick, rolled down her cheeks. She had perfect control of herself-Oh, yes!-in every other way. ~ Virginia Woolf

They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. ~ Tim O'Brien

Of all sciences there is none where first appearances are more deceitful than in politics. ~ David Hume

I am most proud about the science I've done with my own two hands because I have always thought that even if your life path takes you into a leadership position outside the area you were known for, your legitimacy remains in that first field. ~ Gustav Nossal

I was sorry he had not a cat, or a young dog, or better still, an old dog. But all he had to offer in the way of dumb companions was a pink and grey parrot. He used to try and teach it to say, Nihil in intellectu, etc. These first three words the bird managed well enough, but the celebrated restriction was too much for it, all you heard was a series of squawks. ~ Samuel Beckett

Acknowledge God. Acknowledging God first thing every morning transforms my day. I often begin my day by reconfirming His authority over me and submitting to Him as Lord in advance of my daily circumstances. I try to accept the words of Joshua 24:15 as a personal daily challenge: Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. ~ Beth Moore