External Speech

Famous quotes containing the words external and/or speech:

    A tempest cracked on the theatre. Quickly,
    The wind beat in the roof and half the walls.
    The ruin stood still in an external world.
    It had been real. It was something overseas
    That I remembered, something that I remembered
    Overseas, that stood in an external world.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    Grammar is a tricky, inconsistent thing. Being the backbone of speech and writing, it should, we think, be eminently logical, make perfect sense, like the human skeleton. But, of course, the skeleton is arbitrary, too. Why twelve pairs of ribs rather than eleven or thirteen? Why thirty-two teeth? It has something to do with evolution and functionalism—but only sometimes, not always. So there are aspects of grammar that make good, logical sense, and others that do not.
    John Simon (b. 1925)