Romance Language

Famous quotes containing the words romance and/or language:

    The cowboy ... is well on his way to becoming a figure of magnificent proportions. Bowlegged and gaunt, he stands as the apotheosis of manly perfection. Songs, novels, movies, magazines, and operettas have made the least inquiring of us well acquainted with his extraordinary courage, unfailing gallantry, and uncanny skill with gun or lariat. The farmer, meanwhile, sits stolidly on his tractor, bereft of romance and adventure.
    —For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints—the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk—we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we’re its slavish agents.
    Harry Mathews (b. 1930)