“when a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world. ”

“We speak in (rich) monotones. Our poetry is haunted by the music it has left behind. Orpheus shrinks to a poet when he looks back, with the impatience of reason, on a music stronger than death.”

“What you don't know by heart you haven't really loved deeply enough”

“When a language dies, a possible world dies with it.”

“Books - the best antidote against the marsh-gas of boredom and vacuity”

“the calling of the teacher. There is no craft more privileged. To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond ones own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of ones ...”

“We are looking for a tongue that speaks with reverence for life, searching for an ecology of mind. Without it, we have no home, no place of our own within the creation. It is not only the vocabular...”

“But Sasha was from Russia, where the sunsets are longer, the dawns less sudden and sentences are often left unfinished from doubt as how to best end them.”

“Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw? Well, what tongue does the wind talk? What nationality is a storm? What country do rains come from? What color is lightning? Where does thunder goe wh...”

“The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to ...”

“Silence is the mother of truth.”

“Silence is a powerful tool.”