“If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, [and] to all rooms inside.”
Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed
Source: And the Mountains Echoed
Source: And the Mountains Echoed
“If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, [and] to all rooms inside.”
Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed
Source: And the Mountains Echoed
Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist
On Seeing Plays (1990).
Context: It is mankind's discovery of language which more than any other single thing has separated him from the animal creation. Without language, what concept have we of past or future as separated from the immediate present? Without language, how can we tell anyone what we feel, or what we think? It might be said that until he developed language, man had no soul, for without language how could he reach deep inside himself and discover the truths that are hidden there, or find out what emotions he shared, or did not share, with his fellow men and women. But because this greatest gift of all gifts is in daily use, and is smeared, and battered and trivialized by commonplace associations, we too often forget the splendour of which it is capable, and the pleasures that it can give, from the pen of a master.
“Of my Base metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.”
Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer
The Rubaiyat (1120)
Context: The Vine had struck a fibre: which about
If clings my being — let the Dervish flout;
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.
Russell Hoban (1925–2011) American British novelist, children's writer and illustrator
Source: Bedtime for Frances
Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close