There's a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.
It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century.
German football is like English football. The Germans and the English do not play like a Brazilian side. They have to improve, bring up their young players, who have character.
As a young actor, I booked a movie in the U.S. I didn't speak any English at the time, so I learned my lines phonetically when I auditioned for it.
I'm writing in English; I'm writing for a Western audience, but the people I'm surrounded by in my daily life are mostly non-white.
The length and shape of the poemetto, like the greater Romantic lyric of English poetry, lends itself to retrospection and commentary.
The insular arrogance of the English character is a commonplace joke.
And of course we are familiar with the English common law rule of thumb that said a man could in fact use a stick no bigger than his thumb to discipline his wife and family.
So I went to English school, secondary English school, so forget going to Mecca for my religious education.
The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.
English is my first language, but musically speaking, I write my music in Spanish.
English football is really different to football in other countries.
Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.
The English sent all their bores abroad, and acquired the Empire as a punishment.
This is what Hollywood tends to do. It tends to disregard tradition, history and anything factual, twisting it and turning it and making it all okay regardless of what the English may think of it.
Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print - writing in English, interviewing Americans - validated my presence here.
My parents were both Spanish-speakers and they used to speak to me and my siblings in Spanish and we'd answer them in English.
Excellent teachers showered on to us like meteors: Biology teachers holding up human brains, English teachers inspiring us with a personal ideological fierceness about Tolstoy and Plato, Art teachers leading us through the slums of Boston, then back to the easel to hurl public school gouache with social awareness and fury.
I've made a dog's breakfast of English history, geography, 'King Lear,' and the English language in general.
I used to think that my mother got into arguments with people because they didn't understand her English, because she was Chinese.
Imagine you are walking in China, and all the billboards are in English. And at the restaurants, as the people are talking to you, there are live subtitles. You don't even realize you are in a computer; it's just happening.
Nicki Minaj thanked me on the first mixtape that she put out. She shouted me out, said thank you for allowing her to borrow my English accent sometimes. And honestly, a lot of people have told me that I've influenced them.
I finally returned to Iran in 1979, when I got my degree in English and American literature, and stayed for 18 years in the Islamic republic.
Ultimately, to have a career in movies, to a certain extent, certainly in England, you can't sustain a career in just English movies.
Let us work toward greater cooperation with all Caribbean Countries, whether we speak English, Dutch, French or Spanish, whether we are independent or not, and whether we be island or continental territories.
If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.
There's a focus that hasn't been there for ages and ages and some American bands are sounding quite English like they did in the late 70s and early 80s.
English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.
If I were to pray in Arabic, I'd pray to Allah. If I were to pray in English, I'd pray to God.
In my mind, scatological writing is a core of the English canon.
English policy may not yet have made the definite decision to attack us; but it doubtless wishes, by all and every means, even the most extreme, to hinder every further expansion of German international influence and of German maritime power.
I read everything I could find in English - Twain, Henry James, Hemingway, really everything. And then after a while I started writing shorter pieces in English, and one of them got published in a literary magazine and that's how it got started. After that, graduate school didn't seem very important.
Even though I have spent literally years of my life trying to learn another language, any other language - and even though I have in the past claimed in several key professional contexts that I speak other languages - I am in fact still trapped inside the bubble of English.
English, once accepted as an international language, is no more secure than French has proved to be as the one and only accepted language of diplomacy or as Latin has proved to be as the international language of science.
I write in English. My first album came out in Italy, and I toured and did gigs.
I'm so disappointed in the frat parties at Columbia. I'm like an English boy going to an American college. I'm thinking cheerleaders, I'm thinking kegs. That's not what's on the cards.
