Norman MacCaig Quotes

Vocabulary is a matter of word-building as well as word-using.

You see failed vocabulary in the adult world so often, and it's often because once you reach a certain age you're kind of embarrassed to go look up a word if you don't know what it means.

I took Latin and Spanish. I can speak a very small amount of Spanish, but Latin has sort of gone away! Unless I was joining the Catholic Church, there would be no need to learn Latin.

I learned Spanish in five or six months.

When I was little, seven or eight years old, in third and fourth grade, I would always try to use long words and stuff.

There is a way in which all writing is connected. In a second language, for example, a workshop can liberate the students' use of the vocabulary they're acquiring.

To be functionally fluent in a language, for instance, in most cases you need about 1,200 words. To acquire a total of vocabulary words, if you really train someone well they can acquire 200 to 300 words a day, which means that in a week they can acquire the vocabulary necessary to speak a language.

When I last went to Italy, over two years ago, I had a lot more trouble understanding the language than I used to when I lived there for a year. I used to speak very little but I could understand very well.

I speak some French, Spanish, a little German and Gaelic.

Liars ought to have good memories.

When you learn a thing, try to use it sufficiently often not to forget it!

I have a good memory for words, and when I come upon a word I don't know, I remember it, or try to - it's almost like a tic. I also just have a good feeling for how words are made and formed in English and the etymologies that give you prefixes and suffixes.

People are getting more used to another language; that's how I learned English and Spanish. I listened to other singers and tried to sing with them. Of course, I studied it, and I took classes, but music helps me a lot.

I enjoyed learning French, and I enjoyed speaking French.

I used to speak Italian.

There are a lot of words that I knew first as a reader, and I never put the pieces together in my brain. The word segue I thought was pronounced "seeg," I think until I went to college, which is horribly embarrassing.

When reading a book, be very certain that you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood.

I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear. "Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock. Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.

A good liar must have a good memory. Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.

I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.

Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).

The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there of every kind.

She knew words no one had ever heard of, and she used words every day that had been mainly dead or sleeping for hundreds of years.

We live and breathe words.

Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though he still loved her.