Language and Communication Quotes in The History of Love

We often sit together at my kitchen table. The whole afternoon might go by without our saying a word. If we do talk, we never speak in Yiddish. The words of our childhood became strangers to us—we couldn't use them in the same way and so we chose not to use them at all. Life demanded a new language. (1.10)

The reason she had to learn to read it was because it was written in Spanish. [...] During the second week of term, she bought a used bicycle and rode around tacking up posters that said WANTED: HEBREW TUTOR, because languages came easily to her, and she wanted to be able to understand my father. [...] My mother was also teaching herself Spanish out of a book called Teach Yourself Spanish. (2.10)

Sometimes pages of the dictionaries come loose and gather at her feet. [...] When I was little, I thought that the pages on the floor were words she would never be able to use again, and I tried to tape them back in where they belonged, out of fear that one day she would be left silent. (2.25)