Armand Hammer Quotes

Oh, God, I don't know what's more difficult, life or the English language.

I study hard at Russian, which is a tough but most attractive language.

A logical analysis of reflexive usages in French shows, however, that this simplicity is an illusion and that, so far from helping the foreigner, it is more calculated to bother him.

Japanese is a very difficult language.

I'm very proud that I have learned German and Russian. Especially Russian, because of how difficult and beautiful it is and because of how much I struggled in the beginning to get my head around how it works.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

Dutch is not so much a language as an ailment of the throat.

Russian is such a tough and complex language that I am happy enough to understand everything and read most things pretty well, but, without constant practice, my speech is not what I wish it was, and I would sooner write in crayon than write a letter in Russian.

After the turmoil of the Second World War, my family ended up in Russian-occupied East Germany. When I attended fourth grade, I had to learn Russian as my first foreign language in school. I found this quite difficult because of the Cyrillic alphabet, but as time went on, I seemed to do all right.

Words can be very powerful. I find them very difficult.

Words are slippery and thoughts are vicious.

Russian is a really hard language - but I've got my own personal teacher. He's been really patient.

The fact that I didn't speak English I think was the most difficult thing for me.

It's very difficult to write in Russian for someone who has never been schooled in Russian.

I'm studying Finnish, and it's one of the five most difficult languages in the world. And the more I learn, the more I realize that's definitely true.

I can't learn Swedish to save my life. I tried, but I'm not very good at it.

I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear. "Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock. Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.

It is terrible to see someone being beaten up by the English language.

The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German. from "Disappearance of Literature

For me, language is something that I've always loved. When I read, that's what I look for. When I write, that's what I strive for.

A life spent writing has taught me to be wary of words. Those that seem clearest are often the most treacherous.

I'm no linguist, but I have been told that in the Russian language, there isn't even a word for freedom.

Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.

Every word first looks around in every direction before letting itself be written down by me.

First I think I was interested in the stories, and later on, I became more interested in the language itself, so the stories became almost secondary, but it was kind of a background music for my life.