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“He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“Maybe then you comprehend, speaking one language only is a prison!”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“They say language comes better to people who are right-brained, but I'm not so sure. I think you need a certain looseness, a certain fluidity, to speak another language. To take all the words in your brain and turn them over, one by one, like stones - and find something else scrolled on the underside”
― Rebecca Serle, In Five Years

“Tu seras toujours mon ami. Tu auras envie de rire avec moi.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exup¨¦ry, The Little Prince

“Das Problem mit Fremdsprachen [...], wenn man sie nicht zumindest stiefmuttersprachlich beherrschte, war, dass man immer nur sagt, was man sagen kann, und nicht, was man sagen will. Die Differenz ist das Niemandsland zwischen den Grenzen der Welt.”
― Robert Menasse, Die Hauptstadt

“Poj??em, ?e ka?dy ?wiat ma w?asn? tajemnic? i ?e dost?p do niej jest tylko na drodze poznania j?zyka. <...> Rozumia?em, ?e im wi?cej b?d? zna? s?¨®w, tym bogatszy, pe?niejszy i bardziej r¨®?norodny ?wiat otworzy si? przede mn?.”
― Ryszard Kapu?ci¨½ski, Travels with Herodotus

“I need complicated railroad journeys and people speaking to me in foreign languages to keep me happy. I want to see the world and write stories about everything I see.”
― Elizabeth Wein, The Pearl Thief

“There was something about speaking in a foreign language that made her feel like she'd been around a lot.”
― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

“Sina jinsi. Nguzo ya maisha yangu ni historia ya maisha yangu. Historia ya maisha yangu ni urithi wa watu waliojifunza kusema hapana kwa ndiyo nyingi ¨C waliojitolea vitu vingi katika maisha yao kunifikisha hapa nilipo leo ¨C walionifundisha falsafa ya kushindwa si hiari. Siri ya mafanikio yangu ni kujitahidi kwa kadiri ya uwezo wangu wote; au 'pushing the envelope' kwa lugha ya kigeni.”
― Enock Maregesi

“The Word

Wonder or dream from distant land
I carried to my country's strand

And waited till the twilit norn
Had found the name within her bourn¡ª

Then I could grasp it close and strong
It blooms and shines now the front along...

Once I returned from happy sail,
I had a prize so rich and frail,

She sought for long and tidings told:
"No like of this these depths enfold."

And straight it vanished from my hand,
The treasure never graced my land...

So I renounced and sadly see:
Where word breaks off no thing may be.”
― Stefan George, Das Neue Reich

“Screw technicolor, red, and foreign languages. I dream in status updates.”
― Fierce Dolan

“The joy of knowing a foreign language is inexpressible. I find it really difficult to express such joy in my mother tongue.”
― Munia Khan

“His mind traced the arabesques and coils of an alphabet that looked like music sounded.”
― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

“?ry¨¡valo kitesvaro bodhisattvo gambh¨©r¨¡m praj?¨¡p¨¡ra mit¨¡cary¨¡m caram¨¡no... That was close!! I almost opened my hands!”
― Keiichi Arawi, ÈÕ³£ 6

“A cheery receptionist met Donovan as he entered and said something with an upside-down question mark at the beginning.”
― Steven Brust, Good Guys

“Whenever I'm in the company of strangers and speak in a way that reveals my Slav accent, the question follows: "Where are you from?" I always reply politely. It's very important to me that I say exactly where I'm from, and explain where that place is in case the person I'm talking to has never hears of my country ("in Europe, near Italy"). I suppose that's the need in me to feel accepted for what I am.”
― Semezdin Mehmedinovi?, My Heart

“I spent the nine days' voyage partly sketching my Turkish fellow passengers, and partly trying to learn Turkish, and after a time I was able to say, "I would like a shoe-horn," and "See how badly you have ironed my coat, you must do it again." Father Chantry-Pigg said this phrase book was little use, as it had no sentences about the Church being better than Islam...”
― Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond

“This girl. Yellow and amorous. She¡¯s a story. A novel I¡¯ve already read, but in a foreign language.”
― Lancali ., I Fell in Love With Hope

“Continuously stroll through life as though you have something new to learn and you will.”
― IFLAC

“Learning isn't an onlooker sport.”
― institute iflac

“The reason fluency isn¡¯t a given is that life isn¡¯t fair. The classroom can only take you so far. There¡¯s preseason and regular season, and players of all sports will tell you, the speed¡¯s just not the same.”
― John von Sothen, Monsieur Mediocre: One American Learns the High Art of Being Everyday French

“Once during a case of stomach flu, I needed to tell the ?doctor I¡¯d been vomiting, but instead of shifting into the imperfect, I ?used the present je vomis (I¡¯m vomiting), then stood up from his desk and mimicked a fake retch. The doctor in question pushed back from ?his seat thinking it was the real thing, only for me to fake retch again ?then say ¡°dans le pass¨¦¡± (in the past), moving my arm as way to signal ?time past. He quickly wrote me a prescription and handed it to me at ?arm¡¯s length. ?”
― John von Sothen, Monsieur Mediocre: One American Learns the High Art of Being Everyday French

“Dopo aver trascorso un anno a Roma torno per un mese in America. L¨¬, subito, sento la mancanza dell'italiano. Non poterlo parlare e ascoltare ogni giorno mi angoscia. Quando vado nei ristoranti, nei negozi, in spiaggia, m'infastidisco: come mai la gente non parla italiano? Provo un sentimento di nostalgia struggente.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri

“The best way to learn a foreign language is to fuck interesting foreigners.”
― Judy Blume, Summer Sisters

“As an individual struggling with a language not his own he was difficult to dislike.”
― Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief: Adapted from the Novel by Alistair MacLeod

“I lack precisely the thing to explain what I lack. The words. For every word I get out, there's a whole iceberg of thoughts and hopes and feelings that stay unspoken. But how do I speak them?”
― Maria E. Andreu, Love in English

“The foreign books meant much to me. I didn't always understand them, but I valued them regardless, even the simple words in English primers or the technical works beyond my grasp. They were my journeys and my window. I had no other way of looking beyond my small world.”
― Ijen Kim, The Sunset Emperor

“I tried talking to her, but after a year of German, she only knows I have a big, red pencil and I would like more potato salad please.”
― GLEN NESBITT, BREAK OUT OF HEAVEN

“I started learning English from Abuelo Jorge's old grammar textbooks. I found them in Abuelo Celia's closet. They date back to 1919, the first year he started working for the American Electric Broom Company. At school, only a few students were allowed to learn English, by special permission. The rest of us had to learn Russian. I liked the curves of the Cyrillic letters, their unexpected sounds. I liked the way my name looked: §ª§Ó§Ñ§ß. I took Russian for nearly two years at school. My teacher, Sergey Mikoyan, praised me highly. He said I had an ear for languages, that if I studied hard I could be a translator for world leaders. It was true I could repeat anything he said, even tongue twisters like kolokololiteyshchiki perekolotili vikarabkavshihsya vihuholey "the church bell casters slaughtered the desmans that had scrambled out." He told me I had a gift, like playing the violin, or mastering chess.”
― Cristina Garc¨ªa, Dreaming in Cuban

“My mother can hold her own where foreign words are involved. The simple duo-syllable 'croissant' comes out variously as 'craw-sank', 'crass-ant', or 'crah-sint', the word seeming to have no business being in her mouth and getting spat out as quickly as possible like a bad oyster.”
― John Niven, O Brother