speak a language Quotes

“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”

“Her English, like my German, was nearly all holes. Yet invariably I spoke her language and she mine, although any other arrangement at all might have made for a less perforated means of communication.”

“We just never said anything to each other. Over a period of four months, we must have talked for thirty or thirty-five evenings without saying a word.”

“I was taken a little aback, four or five evenings later, when my father suddenly asked me at dinner how I would like to go to Europe to learn a couple of languages the firm could use. First to Vienna and then maybe to Paris, he said unelaborately.”