"Human knowledge is expressed in language. So computational linguistics is very important."
Mark Steedman, 2008, On becoming a discipline, Computational Linguistics, 34(1), p. 144.

"the fact of polysemy reveals that it is apparently easier for people to take old words and extend them to new meanings than to invent new words."
Gregory L. Murphy, 2002, The big book of concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 406.

"The idea that everything BS is BS is BS."*
Ray Mooney, NLP idol, NAACL 2012, Montreal, June 5th 2012.
*BS={Before Statistics, Bad Science}

"Tot es pot mapejar." ("Everything can be mapped.")
Montse Cuadros, personal communication, March 22nd 2010.

"Aren't n-grams sort of NLPish?" 
Anonymous student, The University of Texas at Austin, October 2012. 

"I used that dataset 'cause it already had numbers attached to it." 
Another anonymous student, The University of Texas at Austin, April 2012. 

"If we want to finish, we have to start."
Donka Farkas, before giving an invited talk at the Amsterdam Colloquium 2011, December 21st 2011.

"I think being a woman is like being Irish... Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same."
Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green (1965), quoted in Wikiquote.

"Mama, com es van inventar, les paraules?" (Mom, how were words invented?")
A 7-year-old child to her mother, whispering in the dark, already in bed, July 12th 2012.

"Mama, per què hi ha paraules que volen dir dues coses?" ("Mom, why are there words that mean two things?")
Same child, also at bedtime, February 5th 2013.

"Per què el llenguatge és com és, i no d'una altra manera?" ("Why is language like it is, and not any other way?")
Same child, translating her little sister's question for her mom, October 2014.

"Quina va ser la primera paraula?" ("What was the first word?")
The 6-year old sister, at dinner time, October 2014.

"I like flaws and feel more comfortable around people who have them. I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking: True Stories

Gems from my dictation system

Computational Linguistics / computational linguistic: "computational running with sticks" / "competition on the Mystic"

noun phrases: "non-phrases"

sigmoid: "sick mind"