Edwidge Danticat Quotes

...words are some of the most powerful and important things I know....Language is the tool of love and the weapon of hatred. It's the bright red warning flag of danger--and the stone foundation of diplomacy and peace.

I think it's really important to be able to talk when something's wrong. I learned at a really young age that if you don't talk about it, it can drive you insane.

Japanese is a very difficult language.

I love the English language. Words have power.

Language is very deceiving. In certain languages, there is certain vocabulary that doesn't exist in other languages. It totally changes how people feel about things.

Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean].

It's okay to send flowers, but don't let the flowers do all the talking. Flowers have a limited vocabulary. About the best flowers can say is that you remembered. But your words tell the rest.

Language is what stops the heart exploding.

Talk to me about sadness. I talk about it too much in my own head but I never mind others talking about it either; I occasionally feel like I tremendously need others to talk about it as well.

Thy words, I grant are bigger, for I wear not, my dagger in my mouth.

Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.

So powerful is the charm of words, which for us reduces to manageable entities all the passions that would otherwise madden and destroy us.

All the characters are made out of words. With reading, I understand that the people aren't real but the fact that they are made out of language and are made out of words is extremely powerful to me. It becomes transformative for me. Different people have different ways of trying to make stories using language.

I've forgotten the words with which to tell you. I knew them once, but I've forgotten them, and now I'm talking to you without them.

Words are so awesome. Words are containers for power. They carry either creative power or destructive power.

Look at children. Of course they may quarrel, but generally speaking they do not harbor ill feelings as much or as long as adults do. Most adults have the advantage of education over children, but what is the use of an education if they show a big smile while hiding negative feelings deep inside? Children don�t usually act in such a manner. If they feel angry with someone, they express it, and then it is finished. They can still play with that person the following day.

Notes and chords have become my second language and, more often than not, that vocabulary expresses what I feel when language fails me.

Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.

Please learn the pragmatics of expressing fear: sometimes words that seem to express really invoke. This can be tricky.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

On Valentine's Day, millions of men give millions of women flowers, cards and candy as a heartfelt expression of the emotion that also motivates men to observe anniversaries and birthdays-fear.

A willingness to vocalize feelings. How important it is to be willing to voice one's thoughts and feelings. Yes, how important it is to be able to converse on the level of each family member. Too often we are inclined to let family members assume how we feel toward them. Often wrong conclusions are reached. Very often we could have performed better had we known how family members felt about us and what they expected.

I usually know almost exactly how I feel. The problem is, I just can't tell anyone.

A good cry can be wonderful sometimes, and sadness is nothing more than love announced. Sadness and Unhappiness are not the same thing, and it is good to remember that. And there is this: sadness cleanses the heart.

No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese.