Chris Abani Quotes

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.

Whitney wanted to eradicate the idea that in the case of a language we are dealing with a natural faculty; in fact, social institutions stand opposed to natural institutions.

Nothing exists except through language.

So long as we use a certain language, all questions that we can ask will have to be formulated in it and will thereby confirm the theory of the universe which is implied in the vocabulary and structure of the language.

History is like Santa Claus: a language construction. We have some registers about the existence of Santa and history - the presents under the tree, the archives - but none have really seen them.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language.

Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.

In other words, the man who is born into existence deals first with language; this is a given. He is even caught in it before his birth.

At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct-- if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

Age and numbers are a concept made up by man.

Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it's true.

Words are a strange thing. You once saw an animal and decided it's a 'cat.' But cat is a sound. This cat has nothing to do with the animal. But I have decided it's a cat. So a cat it is.

Words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without blinkers.

The world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it is.

The constructions of language, which is to say the constructions of thought, are formed within experience, not the other way around.

We don't realize how much we create reality through language. If we say that life is hard, it will be hard.

What we call reality is in fact nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination.

Language always pre-exists us: it is always already 'in place', waiting to assign us our places within it.

Language is the net that holds thought trapped within a particular culture. But if one could only strike the ball with sufficient force, with perfect timing, it would perhaps break through the netting, continue on its course, never fall to earth, but go into orbit around the world.

Results from a given approach are "facts" as long as the approach fits the group or the tradition that is being addressed.

Language does our thinking for us.