We find few disputes, that are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression [thereof].
All language is but a poor translation.
Men whose sense of taste is destroyed by sickness, sometimes think honey sour. A diseased eye does not see many things which do exist, and notes many things which do not exist. The same thing frequently takes place with regard to the force of words, when the critic is inferior to the writer.
I don't really believe anything I say. Because the nature of my work concerns the spaces between the words, rather than the words themselves.
The words that are coming out of my mouth and how I mean them, it's so much different.
does one ever say the same thing in the same way to two different people?
To require conformity in the appreciation of sentiments or the interpretation of language, or uniformity of thought, feeling, or action, is a fundamental error in human legislation -- a madness which would be only equaled by requiring all men to possess the same countenance, the same voice or the same stature.
Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you ... at any time.
Certainly ordinary language has no claim to be the last word, if there is such a thing.
Yet human experience and the practice of communication have shown throughout the ages that definitions are an illusion, like having a speech defect and trying to say love but unable to get the word out, or, better, having a tongue in one's head but unable to feel love.
Prose exists to convey meaning, and no meaning such as prose conveys can be expressed as well in poetry. That's not poetry's purpose.
It's your thoughts behind the words you speak that create your attitude.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak; Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
There is truth and falsehood in a comma.
People like me took Donald Trump literally, but never seriously. But his supporters took him seriously and not literally.
