It is possible of course to study speech as human behavior [...].
- Harris (1951), a pag.4

[…] if the phonemic representation of speech is described as being one-one […] this does not mean that if a particular sound 'x' is associated with a phoneme 'Y', then when we are given the phoneme 'Y' we associated with it the original sound 'x'.
- Harris (1951), a pag.5

It may be possible to show, in many languages, that there are differences in style or fashion of speech, in respect to which whole utterances or even discourses are consistent.
- Harris (1951), a pag.10

Even the speech of one individual, or of a group of persons with similar language histories, may be analyzable into more than one dialect […].
- Harris (1951), a pag.13

It is true that the linguistic elements do not describe speech or enable one to reproduce it. But they make it possible to recognize a great many statements about speech, which can be made in terms of the linguistic elements. When the results of linguistic analysis are given in conjunction with detailed descriptions of speech, or with actual samples of speech, a description of the language is obtained.
- Harris (1951), a pag.19, n.21

[…] it must be remembered that speech is a set of complex continuous events—talking does not consist of separate sounds enunciated in succession—and the ability to set up discrete elements lies at the base of the present development of descriptive linguistics.
- Harris (1951), a pag.20

Even interrupted speech hardly ever stops except at the end of a phoneme-length sound-element.
- Harris (1951), a pag.27

[…] the extremely rare case of speech breaking off not at the end of a phonemic-length segment could as well occur at the end of a long conversation as at the end of a brief utterance.
- Harris (1951), a pag.28

It may be noted that the representation of speech as a sequence or arrangement of unit elements is intimately connected with the setting up of phonemic distinctions between each pair of non-equivalent utterances.
- Harris (1951), a pag.34