Van Patter

Famous quotes containing the words van and/or patter:

    Linguistically, and hence conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name; it is to these that words apply first and foremost.
    —Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)

    Houndsditch was ... a crumbling and smoke-grimed necropolis in boarded windows, mummified everywhere by old railings, stagnant air, and cobwebs, where draughty hallways reek with the smell of stale cabbage, Blakean children weep soot, and merchants patter with Mammon and make God evanescent.
    Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)