Language quotes

“- Stanford Marks: You're the girl with the perfumed poo-poo bags, aren't you?
- Elle Woods: Actually I'm the woman with the scented waste receptacles, but yes.”
Bruce McGill - Stanford Marks
Reese Witherspoon - Elle Woods

“- Starman: Shit!
- Jenny Hayden: Don't mind him. He's just learning English.
- Roadhouse Waitress: Well, he's got a hell of a start on it!”
Jeff Bridges - Starman
Karen Allen - Jenny Hayden
Lu Leonard - Roadhouse Waitress

“Agatha Christie is so deadly serious in English... but in French, she's so delightfully funny! Je m'apelle Hercule Poirot, un detective. Her murders are so polite!”
Glenda May Jackson - Stevie

“You're fucking in America, speaking English.”
Ray Liotta - Henry Oak

“- Keoki: What's that?
- Michael Alig: It's a kitty! Aw, it's our lovechild. We'll call him Skrinkle.
- James St. James: [voice over] As you dry your eyes, let me just say this about that. Skrinkle was just the beginning. Skrinkle begat Skroddle and Skrinkle and Skroddle were the Lego blocks of a strange new world he was building for us all. You...” (continue)(continue reading)
Wilmer Valderrama - Keoki
Macaulay Culkin - Michael Alig
Seth Green - James St. James

So the Biblical scholars mis-translated the Hebrew word for "young woman" into the Greek word for "virgin", which was a pretty easy mistake to make, since there is only a subtle difference in the spelling. But back then it was the "virgin" that caught people's attention.
Benicio del Toro - Franky Four Fingers

“Let's say that I taught them Chess instead of English. Every conversation would be a game. Every idea expressed through opposition, victory, defeat.”
Amy Adams - Louise Banks

“English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.”
Sir Michael Caine

“- Courier: Five months in Brazil. You're a hard man to find.
- Arthur Bishop: [in Portuguese] I don't speak English.
- Courier: You even have the accent right.
- Arthur Bishop: [in Portuguese] If you say so.
- Courier: I do say so.”
Yayaying Rhatha Phongam - Courier
Jason Statham - Arthur Bishop

“'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.”
Christian Bale

“It's rare that there's a role that requires an Australian accent.”
Heath Ledger

“- Ghost Dog: I don't understand him. I don't speak French, only English. I never understand a word he says.
- Pearline: And that's your best friend?
- Ghost Dog: Yeah.”
Forest Whitaker - Ghost Dog
Forest Whitaker - Pearline

“- Legislator: What just happened?
- Viscount Halifax: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

Stephen Dillane - Viscount Halifax

Like their ship or their bodies, their written language has no forward or backward direction. Linguists call this "nonlinear orthography", which raises the question: Is this how they think?

Jeremy Renner - Ian Donnelly

“- James 'Droz' Andrews: What's your major?
- Sanskrit Major: Sanskrit.
- James 'Droz' Andrews: Sanskrit. You're majoring in a 5000 year-old dead language?”
Jeremy Piven - James 'Droz' Andrews
Joel Bissonnette - Sanskrit Major

- Frankie, the Big Kahuna: What does "we" mean?
- Bobby:I think it's the plural form, meaning "more than one". Would you like me to conjugate that for you, Pop? Do you know what "conjugate" means, Dad?
Frankie Avalon - Frankie, the Big Kahuna
Demian Slade - Bobby

“You know I don't speak Spanish.”

Will Ferrell - Ron Burgundy

“- Captain Robinson: You speak English? Why didn't you say anything before?
- Morozov: No one speaks me, I don't speak them.”
Jude Law - Robinson
Grigoriy Dobrygin - Morozov

“- Translator Device: All green of skin... 800 centuries ago, their bodily fluids include the birth of half-breeds. For the fundamental truth self-determination of the cosmos, for dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.
- General Decker: What the hell does that mean?”
Roger Jackson - Translator Device
Rod Steiger - General Decker

“- Young Quincy: Can't do this shit!
- Zeke McCall: Boy, what did I tell you about using that word?
- Young Quincy: Can't should never be in a man's vocabulary.
- Zeke McCall: And why not?
- Young Quincy: Cause when you say can't you ain’t a man!”
Glenndon Chatman - Young Quincy
Dennis Haysbert - Zeke McCall

“- Talia: Hey - we all got free tattoos. I wanted something in Japanese so check this out. That one says courage, that one says spirit. Courageous spirit.
- Larry Crowne: That's Chinese, and it says soy sauce.”
Gugu Mbatha-Raw - Talia
Tom Hanks - Larry Crowne

“- Silvia Broome: I'm for peace and quiet, Mr. Lud. It's why I came to the U.N. Quiet diplomacy.
- Nils Lud: With respect, you only interpret.
- Silvia Broome: Countries have gone to war because they've misinterpreted one another.”
Nicole Kidman - Silvia Broome
Jesper Christensen - Nils Lud

“- Holly: [At party] Dad, there are whoreshere n'stuff.
- Holland March: Don't say n'stuff. Just say, Dad, there are whoreshere.”
Angourie Rice - Holly March
Ryan Gosling - Holland March

“- Lytton Strachey: I'm so busy nowadays. I've been learning German, as well. I must say its the most disagreeable language.
- Dora Carrington: Then why learn it?
- Lytton Strachey: Oh, my dear... suppose they win?”
Jonathan Pryce - Lytton Strachey
Emma Thompson - Dora Carrington

“If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers.”
Béla Lugosi